'Tis almost the longest day .. your longest day .. and your free thread
June 17, 2024 12:12 AM Subscribe
'Tis the week of midsummer and the solstice, when people gather for early sunrises, and late sunsets (northern hemisphere edition) impress. Bonfires are lit, and rituals to cleanse abound, in many places (anywhere you want) and not just overcrowded Stonehenge. But what was your "longest day" (and interpret that in any you see fit)? Happy, sad, epic, life-changing, life-affirming? On your own, with a loved one, a friend, or a crowd? Or just write about whatever is on your mind, in your heart, or on your plate, because this is your weekly free thread. Happy midsummer, MeFites!
having a deep appreciation of nature
A Midso/ummer Night's Dream(e) [Gutenberg] came to mind. just now i realized: such a night might be as brief & magical as the play.
i stayed near stonehenge once & was thinking of going there in the morning. the hotelier said even that early it would be busy (already bus tours arriving near the stones) & recommended i see it from the highway. so happy i listened! the A303 was a marvelous way to see this monument. i am saddened that others may be denied such an opportunity [Stonehenge Alliance]
posted by HearHere at 12:56 AM on June 17 [1 favorite]
A Midso/ummer Night's Dream(e) [Gutenberg] came to mind. just now i realized: such a night might be as brief & magical as the play.
i stayed near stonehenge once & was thinking of going there in the morning. the hotelier said even that early it would be busy (already bus tours arriving near the stones) & recommended i see it from the highway. so happy i listened! the A303 was a marvelous way to see this monument. i am saddened that others may be denied such an opportunity [Stonehenge Alliance]
posted by HearHere at 12:56 AM on June 17 [1 favorite]
{reads text am checking for a different Druid group}
No, I'm pretty sure "Hocus Pocus, stick it in your Ford Focus" is not part of any recognised druidic midsummer ritual chant. Then again, whatever floats your boat...
posted by Wordshore at 12:57 AM on June 17 [6 favorites]
No, I'm pretty sure "Hocus Pocus, stick it in your Ford Focus" is not part of any recognised druidic midsummer ritual chant. Then again, whatever floats your boat...
posted by Wordshore at 12:57 AM on June 17 [6 favorites]
I will not speak of my longest day which was several days together.
Instead I will remind myself and others of the beauty in the connections we make with others and with nature. Relish in the singular experience of touching another creature, of the aroma of fresh baked goodness, of cool clean water on a hot day or a warm fire or snuggly blanket on a cold day. These are the things that are truly special.
posted by mightshould at 1:39 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
Instead I will remind myself and others of the beauty in the connections we make with others and with nature. Relish in the singular experience of touching another creature, of the aroma of fresh baked goodness, of cool clean water on a hot day or a warm fire or snuggly blanket on a cold day. These are the things that are truly special.
posted by mightshould at 1:39 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
woodhenge [English Heritage] was the destination: right nearby Stonehenge. it was much less crowded (the tour buses surrounding the stones seemed like yet another, more modern, concentric circle). at woodhenge, i only saw a couple dog walkers & learned history
posted by HearHere at 3:02 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
posted by HearHere at 3:02 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
Brooklyn's Botanic Garden commissioned a pair special arrangements of the composition Canto Ostinato, with a small group performing it at sunrise and a second performance at sunset. I have a membership and I have no day job at the moment, so I could go check both out (and nap in mid-day, which may be smart since it's going to be bloody hot).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:31 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:31 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
I hover between amused and bewildered when folks here 'confess' to being old and at such tender ages, seemingly half in explanation, (as in what can I be expected to say of interest in our digital age), half in resignation, (as if one is about to slip thru life's trap door into oblivion) or maybe, (if the mods will allow me another 'half') half in conformity to the Metalfilter compunction to label everything/body, as in I'm CIS, you're Ableist, he's a billionaire etc etc. (as if the label tells us all we need to know about a soul and is a kind of portmanteau theory of everything).
Be that as it may..... My experience suggests that every age has offered rewards and challenges and in my 70s it is the same. In that regard 73 is a lot like 3, 33 and all stations between. In many ways it is tons easier too. But the chief thing is that there is no qualitative break with who I was. There is no distinct old me. The 3 year old, the 13 year old and the 23 year old are still there, alive and well and occasionally in need of reassurance.
One of the absolute joys of the latest iteration of your truly is perspective. I can look back on all manner of anxieties and critically important, life or death stuff - as it seemed then and chuckle. What trivia. What a load of bollocks it was - 'tho of course, exactly the kind of stuff you would get excited about at 40 or whatever the age for that was. Being old explains precious little it seems to me. Beyond the pistol shots that ring out when I overdo squats.
It is so FREEING and I love it.
posted by dutchrick at 3:44 AM on June 17 [23 favorites]
Be that as it may..... My experience suggests that every age has offered rewards and challenges and in my 70s it is the same. In that regard 73 is a lot like 3, 33 and all stations between. In many ways it is tons easier too. But the chief thing is that there is no qualitative break with who I was. There is no distinct old me. The 3 year old, the 13 year old and the 23 year old are still there, alive and well and occasionally in need of reassurance.
One of the absolute joys of the latest iteration of your truly is perspective. I can look back on all manner of anxieties and critically important, life or death stuff - as it seemed then and chuckle. What trivia. What a load of bollocks it was - 'tho of course, exactly the kind of stuff you would get excited about at 40 or whatever the age for that was. Being old explains precious little it seems to me. Beyond the pistol shots that ring out when I overdo squats.
It is so FREEING and I love it.
posted by dutchrick at 3:44 AM on June 17 [23 favorites]
Awake too early. Doctor's appointment today (routine endo visit). Vacation starting later this week (thanks for your suggestions!). Tired, of course, but right leg hurts so wasn't getting back to sleep. Hungry, purring cat perched atop my left forearm as I type this.
posted by May Kasahara at 3:58 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
posted by May Kasahara at 3:58 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
KP duty on Thanksgiving Day as a soldt at Fort Dix 1966. Up at 2am for kitchen duty at 3am. Washed trays and dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Off duty at 11pm.
posted by Czjewel at 3:58 AM on June 17 [7 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 3:58 AM on June 17 [7 favorites]
I envy your amazing, positive mindset re: age, dutchrick. At my (relative to you) young age of 66, I just can’t find anything positive or remotely appealing about being/becoming old. About the only perspective it seems to afford is that of looking back and seeing every mistake I made over my lifetime in utter clarity. Looking forward is just an exercise in fear.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:28 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 4:28 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
Thorzdad, clarity is a neat thing in-and-of-itself. i know a few older people who've lost that. that's unfortunate from my perspective, but maybe it's something to look forward to?
dutchrick, aging is a very interesting experience, indeed. looking back, what i reflect on is awareness that *this person* existed at all those moments & is continuing to exist. yes, freeing!
popped back into this thread with an interpretation of my longest day: an all-nighter. dawn rising after i'd been up all night was indescribable
posted by HearHere at 4:51 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
dutchrick, aging is a very interesting experience, indeed. looking back, what i reflect on is awareness that *this person* existed at all those moments & is continuing to exist. yes, freeing!
popped back into this thread with an interpretation of my longest day: an all-nighter. dawn rising after i'd been up all night was indescribable
posted by HearHere at 4:51 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
popped back into this thread with an interpretation of my longest day: an all-nighter. dawn rising after i'd been up all night was indescribable
Popping back in to say: I've done that before too! Staying up overnight to shoot my thesis film the old fashioned way-- I was an animation major. Didn't see the sun rise because of that, but I was awake for something like 36-48 hours.
posted by May Kasahara at 5:04 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
Popping back in to say: I've done that before too! Staying up overnight to shoot my thesis film the old fashioned way-- I was an animation major. Didn't see the sun rise because of that, but I was awake for something like 36-48 hours.
posted by May Kasahara at 5:04 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
About the only perspective it seems to afford is that of looking back and seeing every mistake I made over my lifetime in utter clarity
"Ah well, so be it. The compensation of growing old, Peter Walsh thought, coming out of Regent’s Park, and holding his hat in hand, was simply this; that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained — at last! — the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence — the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light."
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
posted by jedicus at 5:11 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
"Ah well, so be it. The compensation of growing old, Peter Walsh thought, coming out of Regent’s Park, and holding his hat in hand, was simply this; that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained — at last! — the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence — the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light."
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
posted by jedicus at 5:11 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
I woke up at 2:30 am. and can't get back to sleep after taking the entire limit of my sleep meds. I lined up a doctor appointment for this next week, so we start the new doctor special hell soon. On a related note, what do you do when you want to get your prescriptions transferred to another HMO? I have no idea if this is even doable or if I have to book fresh new appointments with all doctors to see if they will still let me take them :/
Today I start actually doing work at my new job. I hope it goes well.
Why do USC C ports just not charge? I don't want to hear stuff about how they have lint in there, I'm talking about how periodically the cords just have a slow death, have to be precision lined up to perfection to work, frequently just "slow charge," have to be plugged in in just the right direction, etc. I should not have to put it on the charger, after having made sure the charger is on, and then realize it hasn't done fuckall all night long. And I bought ALL NEW cords, too.
Theater update for this week:
(a) I got into Something Rotten!!!! Hooray! I don't know who else has gotten in since they sent an email saying to confirm by 8 p.m. yesterday, perhaps they will send a list later? I'm excited, even if the driving is gonna be kind of a load since my home is located in the halfway point between my job and this theater area. Starts mid-July after this show ends.
(b) Little Mermaid, show wise, has been going well. HOWEVER, the one drama is that a set designer (engineer girl in grad school) was somehow booked to do the set decor for this show for her portfolio and it has not gone well. She had a very ambitious plan that probably could have worked if we'd had 8 working days and not um, five, essentially. Two days were dedicated to making little crafts to glue onto things. The next week, we had to paper mache four stalactites/stalagmites and four rocks ranging in size. They had to be paper mache'd, dry, get sanded (?), get painted, and then glue all the crafts on. She had people spraypaint a bunch of trash bags to look like kelp, which so far hasn't been used. A bunch of pool noodles and cardboard boxes were brought in and not really ever gotten to. She painted some very large set pieces. If you asked her what had to be done, she got flustered and couldn't answer because it was too overwhelming. At least other people built the set stuff, but it was pretty obvious that all the stuff she wanted wasn't going to be done in time.
I left a few hours early on the last day. I note the last of the giant rocks wasn't done, but that doesn't surprise me because it was too big and huge. But apparently what happened during those two hours was the set designer having some kind of bad glue gun accident that sent her to urgent care and she later posted pics of herself with her hands completely bandaged. I have used hot glue, I have burned myself slightly, and I am baffled as to how the hell she got that much hot glue out of a gun and alllllll over both hands, because that's seriously not how they work, they can't squirt out enough glue to do that. The stage manager said she spent thirteen hours cleaning all of this up, throwing out all the unused boxes, etc. and not getting her work done after all of that.
Yesterday we did cue to cue, which is when the stage manager assigns people to moving set pieces. This is when the director (having a crankypants day, clearly) snapped that he hated the rocks and didn't want to use them. The stage manager liked the rocks (and said she'd even wanted to keep them after the show is over, and was upset by this) and she said she saw our faces after all that work...She was extremely nice about the whole thing, said she'd try to find some other way to use the rocks, but it's director's prerogative and we have to go with their "vision." And frankly, all of this girl's work got scrapped (the four castle walls we painted for two days? gone, they just
fished out some old flats) except for the stalactites and stalagmites--apparently that was the only thing he liked and he was mad there weren't more of them. The stage and set are frankly, bare. SM said it was the worst cue to cue ever and worst first day of tech ever, and this is from someone who's done around 90 shows.
My castmate said, "I knew things were going too smoothly."
At dinner, the conversation was along the lines of "I don't think she could manage time well" and "it would have helped to have a list of what needed to be done" and "she didn't delegate well and just kept painting things." I would reasonably assume that the director was pissed off about the whole thing (he didn't say anything at the time, but how could he not be) as he later snapped his head off at his wife/the rest of us because he suddenly decided we should all be using flat wooden boards in two scenes rather than one, even if we're supposed to also be carrying mops and buckets, and demanded to know why we weren't already using them. Wife was not thrilled, obviously.
Tech week, everybody!
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:28 AM on June 17 [10 favorites]
Today I start actually doing work at my new job. I hope it goes well.
Why do USC C ports just not charge? I don't want to hear stuff about how they have lint in there, I'm talking about how periodically the cords just have a slow death, have to be precision lined up to perfection to work, frequently just "slow charge," have to be plugged in in just the right direction, etc. I should not have to put it on the charger, after having made sure the charger is on, and then realize it hasn't done fuckall all night long. And I bought ALL NEW cords, too.
Theater update for this week:
(a) I got into Something Rotten!!!! Hooray! I don't know who else has gotten in since they sent an email saying to confirm by 8 p.m. yesterday, perhaps they will send a list later? I'm excited, even if the driving is gonna be kind of a load since my home is located in the halfway point between my job and this theater area. Starts mid-July after this show ends.
(b) Little Mermaid, show wise, has been going well. HOWEVER, the one drama is that a set designer (engineer girl in grad school) was somehow booked to do the set decor for this show for her portfolio and it has not gone well. She had a very ambitious plan that probably could have worked if we'd had 8 working days and not um, five, essentially. Two days were dedicated to making little crafts to glue onto things. The next week, we had to paper mache four stalactites/stalagmites and four rocks ranging in size. They had to be paper mache'd, dry, get sanded (?), get painted, and then glue all the crafts on. She had people spraypaint a bunch of trash bags to look like kelp, which so far hasn't been used. A bunch of pool noodles and cardboard boxes were brought in and not really ever gotten to. She painted some very large set pieces. If you asked her what had to be done, she got flustered and couldn't answer because it was too overwhelming. At least other people built the set stuff, but it was pretty obvious that all the stuff she wanted wasn't going to be done in time.
I left a few hours early on the last day. I note the last of the giant rocks wasn't done, but that doesn't surprise me because it was too big and huge. But apparently what happened during those two hours was the set designer having some kind of bad glue gun accident that sent her to urgent care and she later posted pics of herself with her hands completely bandaged. I have used hot glue, I have burned myself slightly, and I am baffled as to how the hell she got that much hot glue out of a gun and alllllll over both hands, because that's seriously not how they work, they can't squirt out enough glue to do that. The stage manager said she spent thirteen hours cleaning all of this up, throwing out all the unused boxes, etc. and not getting her work done after all of that.
Yesterday we did cue to cue, which is when the stage manager assigns people to moving set pieces. This is when the director (having a crankypants day, clearly) snapped that he hated the rocks and didn't want to use them. The stage manager liked the rocks (and said she'd even wanted to keep them after the show is over, and was upset by this) and she said she saw our faces after all that work...She was extremely nice about the whole thing, said she'd try to find some other way to use the rocks, but it's director's prerogative and we have to go with their "vision." And frankly, all of this girl's work got scrapped (the four castle walls we painted for two days? gone, they just
fished out some old flats) except for the stalactites and stalagmites--apparently that was the only thing he liked and he was mad there weren't more of them. The stage and set are frankly, bare. SM said it was the worst cue to cue ever and worst first day of tech ever, and this is from someone who's done around 90 shows.
My castmate said, "I knew things were going too smoothly."
At dinner, the conversation was along the lines of "I don't think she could manage time well" and "it would have helped to have a list of what needed to be done" and "she didn't delegate well and just kept painting things." I would reasonably assume that the director was pissed off about the whole thing (he didn't say anything at the time, but how could he not be) as he later snapped his head off at his wife/the rest of us because he suddenly decided we should all be using flat wooden boards in two scenes rather than one, even if we're supposed to also be carrying mops and buckets, and demanded to know why we weren't already using them. Wife was not thrilled, obviously.
Tech week, everybody!
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:28 AM on June 17 [10 favorites]
....So, one thing I really appreciated about Actors' Equity (which also covers Stage Managers) is that sometime during my tenure, it issued a blanket rule that said that stage managers automatically got a 1/6 pay raise during tech week. I didn't even know about it until they were calling me three days after we opened that particular show to say that "Hey, we noticed that your producer didn't give that to you, so we made them and you'll see that in your next paycheck from them."
"uh....thanks?"
...Have completed my round of job board scrolling and tossing applications here and there for the morning. My roommate went into his office earlier than usual and will be gone all day, and asked me a favor to stick around and watch for a package that might be arriving for him today. I have a virtual interview at 11:30, and otherwise I will be puttering around - it is going to be the last somewhat comfortable day for a few days, so I'm going to bake a zucchini bread and make a few other meal prep things to stuff the fridge with, so that when it's blasting hot I'll be able to just pull stuff out of the fridge instead of cooking.
Also, hopefully that will clean enough room out in the fridge for me to be able to drain the maple yogurt I got last week and start a batch of maple bourbon pecan froyo. Because cold stuff on a hot day will also be good.
....A neighbor in my building is also recently unemployed and is on his own job hunt. This is a guy who moved into the apartment next door and I'm getting some kind of "vibe" that's making me rethink whether or not my libido is all that dormant after all. ....He also joined our community garden, which put us into a bit closer contact than the occasional pass-in-the-hallway; I also suggested that we be weekly Job Hunt Accountability Buddies, so we'll see.
(My roommate is out of the country the first couple weeks of July and I'm hoping maybe I could take advantage of that somehow....)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:47 AM on June 17 [8 favorites]
"uh....thanks?"
...Have completed my round of job board scrolling and tossing applications here and there for the morning. My roommate went into his office earlier than usual and will be gone all day, and asked me a favor to stick around and watch for a package that might be arriving for him today. I have a virtual interview at 11:30, and otherwise I will be puttering around - it is going to be the last somewhat comfortable day for a few days, so I'm going to bake a zucchini bread and make a few other meal prep things to stuff the fridge with, so that when it's blasting hot I'll be able to just pull stuff out of the fridge instead of cooking.
Also, hopefully that will clean enough room out in the fridge for me to be able to drain the maple yogurt I got last week and start a batch of maple bourbon pecan froyo. Because cold stuff on a hot day will also be good.
....A neighbor in my building is also recently unemployed and is on his own job hunt. This is a guy who moved into the apartment next door and I'm getting some kind of "vibe" that's making me rethink whether or not my libido is all that dormant after all. ....He also joined our community garden, which put us into a bit closer contact than the occasional pass-in-the-hallway; I also suggested that we be weekly Job Hunt Accountability Buddies, so we'll see.
(My roommate is out of the country the first couple weeks of July and I'm hoping maybe I could take advantage of that somehow....)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:47 AM on June 17 [8 favorites]
I'm still making sandwiches. I just made my 80th yesterday. I'm really enjoying this challenge. All the world is a sandwich and sandwich-ism brings us all together, between bread.
posted by Stanczyk at 5:57 AM on June 17 [7 favorites]
posted by Stanczyk at 5:57 AM on June 17 [7 favorites]
I have been struggling on my hobby project for a month or two, I was extremely burned out in general and just not able to come to grips with it even on weekends. I tried getting back on the horse weekend before last, but hit a new snag- one of my cats peed on the dev board, smack dab on the CPU module in the middle. I didn't notice it until I couldn't get it to come up even in recovery mode, and then I saw the little puddle next to the board where it had run off. The board was completely toast, obvious electrical damage on the pins of the CPU module, who knows what else got damaged. The presumptive perpetrator is lucky he's so fucking charming. Ordering the replacement board was about $500 down the drain.
It honestly came as a relief, weirdly enough. Definitely enough of a stumbling block for me to cancel the demo I was intending to do at Kansasfest next month. Which I'd been stressing about, particularly given the lack of progress lately. I'm not giving up on the project! But taking the demo off of my plate felt so liberating, I have been a lot more relaxed in general and started to make progress again. There was stuff I could do last week while waiting for the replacement board, and over the weekend I verified the replacement board functionality and even made it to the milestone I'd been beating my head on for the last two months.
I finally got code running on the microcontroller core that properly registers interrupt handlers, and also got it properly cohabitating with Linux running on the main CPU cores, with the interrupt counter, in shared memory, being readable on the Linux side. So I had one of the GPIOs wired up to a momentary switch, and could push the button and watch a counter go up on the Linux side. Sounds simple, but configuring this kind of stuff in modern hardware is tricky. Getting this minimal example to work is a major milestone and gives me a lot of confidence that the essential hardware task I am aiming for will work.
The software side is another matter entirely. After hitting the milestone yesterday afternoon, I turned my attention to the GPU rendering software which is the other half of the project, which my project partner is in charge of. I can get it to compile, but the GL stuff is failing right out of the gate. This end is way out of my wheelhouse, but I have to do the initial debugging because my partner doesn't have his own copy of the hardware yet. He's helping me how he can, but it will be a struggle. If we get that end to come up and show minimal functionality though, that's the final sign that we're going to be able to make the whole thing work end-to-end. I might even have a basic demo to show at Kansasfest unofficially. Just something to set up in my room and show without the pressure of being on camera in front of everybody.
posted by notoriety public at 6:10 AM on June 17 [8 favorites]
It honestly came as a relief, weirdly enough. Definitely enough of a stumbling block for me to cancel the demo I was intending to do at Kansasfest next month. Which I'd been stressing about, particularly given the lack of progress lately. I'm not giving up on the project! But taking the demo off of my plate felt so liberating, I have been a lot more relaxed in general and started to make progress again. There was stuff I could do last week while waiting for the replacement board, and over the weekend I verified the replacement board functionality and even made it to the milestone I'd been beating my head on for the last two months.
I finally got code running on the microcontroller core that properly registers interrupt handlers, and also got it properly cohabitating with Linux running on the main CPU cores, with the interrupt counter, in shared memory, being readable on the Linux side. So I had one of the GPIOs wired up to a momentary switch, and could push the button and watch a counter go up on the Linux side. Sounds simple, but configuring this kind of stuff in modern hardware is tricky. Getting this minimal example to work is a major milestone and gives me a lot of confidence that the essential hardware task I am aiming for will work.
The software side is another matter entirely. After hitting the milestone yesterday afternoon, I turned my attention to the GPU rendering software which is the other half of the project, which my project partner is in charge of. I can get it to compile, but the GL stuff is failing right out of the gate. This end is way out of my wheelhouse, but I have to do the initial debugging because my partner doesn't have his own copy of the hardware yet. He's helping me how he can, but it will be a struggle. If we get that end to come up and show minimal functionality though, that's the final sign that we're going to be able to make the whole thing work end-to-end. I might even have a basic demo to show at Kansasfest unofficially. Just something to set up in my room and show without the pressure of being on camera in front of everybody.
posted by notoriety public at 6:10 AM on June 17 [8 favorites]
Because we aren't always there and the place looks like what it is, a construction site, and I don't want people to think they can just wander in - I put up a camera so I can watch the place when we aren't there. I can call up the camera on my phone, which is creepy, but with boundaries set up, necessary and useful. The problem is setting up those boundaries. I want the 'sensitivity' setting such that person will set it off, but a bird or a spider, not. And, looking at the sensitivity settings, noted I can also set it up so it only reacts to movement in a specific area. Nice.
Of course, after setting all this up, the camera seems to have forgotten everything I've asked of it. So I dive back into the settings and now can no longer find the menus/panel where I set up the sensitivity of the camera. And website for the device, no reference to it at all. But I know I saw it, and, of course now it seems the camera _has_ taken my settings to note. I think.
And this, in a nutshell is my problem with our wondrous technological age: shitty instructions, mediocre menus, useless user interfaces. Why not? You've gone through all this trouble to make a thing, why not fill out the last little requirement, and make it useable. I don't want to crack the menus and go into the code - I imagine I could do that, but I don't want to - the whole point of Our Modern World is that I shouldn't have to, and yet...
The baby stork up the street (which is quite big now) was practicing his flying the other day and you could see it figuring out how it all works. It better sort it quick, they leave in a little over a month. I read somewhere that until the 1960's they never really knew where the Storks went in the winter. That might be apocryphal, but I like it.
posted by From Bklyn at 6:26 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
Of course, after setting all this up, the camera seems to have forgotten everything I've asked of it. So I dive back into the settings and now can no longer find the menus/panel where I set up the sensitivity of the camera. And website for the device, no reference to it at all. But I know I saw it, and, of course now it seems the camera _has_ taken my settings to note. I think.
And this, in a nutshell is my problem with our wondrous technological age: shitty instructions, mediocre menus, useless user interfaces. Why not? You've gone through all this trouble to make a thing, why not fill out the last little requirement, and make it useable. I don't want to crack the menus and go into the code - I imagine I could do that, but I don't want to - the whole point of Our Modern World is that I shouldn't have to, and yet...
The baby stork up the street (which is quite big now) was practicing his flying the other day and you could see it figuring out how it all works. It better sort it quick, they leave in a little over a month. I read somewhere that until the 1960's they never really knew where the Storks went in the winter. That might be apocryphal, but I like it.
posted by From Bklyn at 6:26 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
SQUIRREL SPA! (WaPo gift link) I don't think there'd be enough discussion of this for an FPP, but it's fun!
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:45 AM on June 17 [1 favorite]
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:45 AM on June 17 [1 favorite]
My wife's birthday is the 21st, on the solstice, so not quite European "midsummer", but still midsummer by the position of the sun. My wife turns 60 this year, and it's hard for her, but not really in an "I'm so old" way.
She has been through...a lot...in her life, and I admit some of that was the first decade we were together, but in the past 5 to 10 years she has been able to reflect on herself more, and in the past two years she has embraced what she calls "her crone" -- she has no time for bullshit any more, she trusts herself to take risks, and she is allowing herself to really expand self-expression. She has always been creative, but she has moved into large-scale, personal, capital-A Art and it's working well for her. She expresses regret that she didn't find this in herself earlier in life, and wonders how many years she has left; it's not a recognition of "I'm on a downward slide into decrepit old age", it's "despite setbacks, somehow I'm speeding towards the finish line in first place - but do I have enough fuel to get there?"
My response is that she's got at least another thirty years in her, which she scoffs at but then does seem to recognize that 60 isn't as old as she used to think.
It has been a while since she's wanted to do this, but a tradition in her younger years, on her birthday, is to go to a graveyard, a sort of 'memento mori' thing, and meditate. The Catholic cemetery here has a "nun section" that my wife is fond of, where the nun's graves are all arranged in a semicircle, and in the center of the circle is a big statue of a early bishop from the area, which my wife is offended by -- they still have to 'worship' a mortal man, even in death? -- but she walks among the little headstones of the sisters, marble markers flush with the ground, incised with their 'nun names', Sister Michael Mary [Lastname], Sister Mary Ignatius [Lastname], etc. She'd take a half hour or so of quiet reflection, reading names and thinking about their lives, then she'd be ready to leave and do something more traditional for her birthday.
Tiny film student update: my month-long screenwriting class ended with perfect scores; I like the script I've got so far -- the first third of it -- but I recognize it's still a very rough draft. Now the challenge is do I find the time to eventually finish it? Also, talking to a fellow student, realized that the fall-or-spring screenwriting class is usually a whole semester, so did I actually learn what the fall semester would get, or did I get an abbreviated version? But, the goal is a degree, so it's finish a class and move on to the next.
The weekend before last, my professor/friend/filmmaking-partner was filming a different short film he had been planning for a while; he is a recovering drug addict, and his short films are a open-ended cycle of drug-abuse-related stories; this was reflecting on being a member of Narconon. I helped with the camera, which was the goal so I can help more with the film we're making together. That film has a rehearsal on July 7th, then film the last weekend of July. In between there I have a large gig: 11 days working on a live-broadcast, internet-streaming sporting event. Last year was my first year on this event, and it's always a good sign when they call you back, so it should go well. If Instagram tells me anything, it's that gigs are reaallllyyy hard to come by, which is always tough up here in very rural ND/MN, but I can even see that productions are really holding back. Like, every couple months there'd be some true-crime crew, or a regional-food-show episode, or finding-a-house shows, but it's been almost nothing since before the strikes last year. I'm glad I have a day job which tolerates my gig work, but the pro crews that travel for these shows, who are also largely freelancers but also have a hundred grand in camera equipment, must be really struggling.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:51 AM on June 17 [11 favorites]
She has been through...a lot...in her life, and I admit some of that was the first decade we were together, but in the past 5 to 10 years she has been able to reflect on herself more, and in the past two years she has embraced what she calls "her crone" -- she has no time for bullshit any more, she trusts herself to take risks, and she is allowing herself to really expand self-expression. She has always been creative, but she has moved into large-scale, personal, capital-A Art and it's working well for her. She expresses regret that she didn't find this in herself earlier in life, and wonders how many years she has left; it's not a recognition of "I'm on a downward slide into decrepit old age", it's "despite setbacks, somehow I'm speeding towards the finish line in first place - but do I have enough fuel to get there?"
My response is that she's got at least another thirty years in her, which she scoffs at but then does seem to recognize that 60 isn't as old as she used to think.
It has been a while since she's wanted to do this, but a tradition in her younger years, on her birthday, is to go to a graveyard, a sort of 'memento mori' thing, and meditate. The Catholic cemetery here has a "nun section" that my wife is fond of, where the nun's graves are all arranged in a semicircle, and in the center of the circle is a big statue of a early bishop from the area, which my wife is offended by -- they still have to 'worship' a mortal man, even in death? -- but she walks among the little headstones of the sisters, marble markers flush with the ground, incised with their 'nun names', Sister Michael Mary [Lastname], Sister Mary Ignatius [Lastname], etc. She'd take a half hour or so of quiet reflection, reading names and thinking about their lives, then she'd be ready to leave and do something more traditional for her birthday.
Tiny film student update: my month-long screenwriting class ended with perfect scores; I like the script I've got so far -- the first third of it -- but I recognize it's still a very rough draft. Now the challenge is do I find the time to eventually finish it? Also, talking to a fellow student, realized that the fall-or-spring screenwriting class is usually a whole semester, so did I actually learn what the fall semester would get, or did I get an abbreviated version? But, the goal is a degree, so it's finish a class and move on to the next.
The weekend before last, my professor/friend/filmmaking-partner was filming a different short film he had been planning for a while; he is a recovering drug addict, and his short films are a open-ended cycle of drug-abuse-related stories; this was reflecting on being a member of Narconon. I helped with the camera, which was the goal so I can help more with the film we're making together. That film has a rehearsal on July 7th, then film the last weekend of July. In between there I have a large gig: 11 days working on a live-broadcast, internet-streaming sporting event. Last year was my first year on this event, and it's always a good sign when they call you back, so it should go well. If Instagram tells me anything, it's that gigs are reaallllyyy hard to come by, which is always tough up here in very rural ND/MN, but I can even see that productions are really holding back. Like, every couple months there'd be some true-crime crew, or a regional-food-show episode, or finding-a-house shows, but it's been almost nothing since before the strikes last year. I'm glad I have a day job which tolerates my gig work, but the pro crews that travel for these shows, who are also largely freelancers but also have a hundred grand in camera equipment, must be really struggling.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:51 AM on June 17 [11 favorites]
The heat here in Georgia is hitting me hard (90s F with humidity greater than 60%), so I'm taking an unwanted day off today to just try to recover from too much field work and exercise in too much heat.
I had this idea of climbing Stone Mountain for the solstice sunrise, but that granite is so hot the minute the sun hits it. I'll save my idea for the winter solstice.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:06 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
I had this idea of climbing Stone Mountain for the solstice sunrise, but that granite is so hot the minute the sun hits it. I'll save my idea for the winter solstice.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:06 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
My longest day was last June - I crewed for an overnight sailing race on a Great Lake that starts at 6 pm and generally takes 16 to 20 hours to complete. You're supposed to do shifts - 4 hours on deck, then a 4 hour break/nap below, but it was too rough and I was too keyed up to sleep, so I was on deck for the whole thing (it was my first overnighter). Being on the water at night can be magical AND scary. Coolest moment - encountering and keeping out of the way of a crossing freighter at 4 AM. The last leg of the race was a glorious fast beam reach in perfect sunny conditions. (The skipper called those conditions "Champagne sailing" because of the steady fizz of water past the hull). Almost an endorphin high at that point. All told, I was awake for a solid 32 hours total. Good times.
* * *
I love our kitty, but if she peed on my desk, let alone on a circuit board, there would be a discussion... speaking of hardware, an old client has asked me to help him revisit a gesture control prototype he commissioned several years ago. Could be fun.
* * *
I still want yr brain, Dutchrick. We're retired and in many ways lucky beyond belief, yet i spend too much time dwelling on my many past mistakes, and the paths no longer open to me... and the net result is often a paralysis that stops me from enjoying all the opportunities and pleasures of NOW. How dumb is that?
posted by Artful Codger at 7:10 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
* * *
I love our kitty, but if she peed on my desk, let alone on a circuit board, there would be a discussion... speaking of hardware, an old client has asked me to help him revisit a gesture control prototype he commissioned several years ago. Could be fun.
* * *
I still want yr brain, Dutchrick. We're retired and in many ways lucky beyond belief, yet i spend too much time dwelling on my many past mistakes, and the paths no longer open to me... and the net result is often a paralysis that stops me from enjoying all the opportunities and pleasures of NOW. How dumb is that?
posted by Artful Codger at 7:10 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
I generally plan and cook all of my family's meals. For Father's Day, my lovely family told me they would take care of everything. They'd do the shopping and grill the steaks and I could just relax and enjoy the sunny weather.
Bless their hearts, they came home with round steaks. "Round" beef is the cut most often turned into hamburger. Unless you you beat the hell out of it with a tenderizer and/or marinate it overnight, no one is grilling that, unless they want to spend all night chewing it.
I grabbed my keys and got us some ribeyes, and yeah, I also went ahead and grilled them.
it was still a really nice night, though.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:24 AM on June 17 [9 favorites]
Bless their hearts, they came home with round steaks. "Round" beef is the cut most often turned into hamburger. Unless you you beat the hell out of it with a tenderizer and/or marinate it overnight, no one is grilling that, unless they want to spend all night chewing it.
I grabbed my keys and got us some ribeyes, and yeah, I also went ahead and grilled them.
it was still a really nice night, though.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:24 AM on June 17 [9 favorites]
perhaps I should post this to AskMe but I was at a dinner table yesterday and someone brought that whole "they're letting kids pee in cat boxes in school" thing and it just took me by surprise, and I responded with more energy than was maybe needed, but where the hell does that even come from?
I couldn't let it go, lost sleep, I suppose I could do some research, but how does this stuff get its claws into people to the point they're parroting that shit in e.g. Small Town Canada. I fucking know the kids up at my high school are not peeing in cat boxes, and I don't think I should have to prove it
posted by elkevelvet at 7:25 AM on June 17 [9 favorites]
I couldn't let it go, lost sleep, I suppose I could do some research, but how does this stuff get its claws into people to the point they're parroting that shit in e.g. Small Town Canada. I fucking know the kids up at my high school are not peeing in cat boxes, and I don't think I should have to prove it
posted by elkevelvet at 7:25 AM on June 17 [9 favorites]
Dang, elkevelvet, that would rankle me, too.
We're going to see the cousins in Romania next month and they're gonna be a challenge. They're sweet people, but they're not just down the right wing stupid news rabbit hole, they're down the Hungarian version of it: weather weapons, gay people are a grooming cabal, the works.
I think this time, instead of arguing I am just going to look for a single, withering thing I can say to brush them off. I've told our kiddo that cousin Zolti is the kind of smart person who got so proud of being smart that it made him stupid. Maybe there's a version of that I can clean up and throw out there.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:31 AM on June 17 [6 favorites]
We're going to see the cousins in Romania next month and they're gonna be a challenge. They're sweet people, but they're not just down the right wing stupid news rabbit hole, they're down the Hungarian version of it: weather weapons, gay people are a grooming cabal, the works.
I think this time, instead of arguing I am just going to look for a single, withering thing I can say to brush them off. I've told our kiddo that cousin Zolti is the kind of smart person who got so proud of being smart that it made him stupid. Maybe there's a version of that I can clean up and throw out there.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:31 AM on June 17 [6 favorites]
My longest day would probably be one of the many all nighters I pulled in college. Also, I'd stay up later and later until I was fully nocturnal. Then I'd stay up all day to fully wrap around and reset my clock. I've gotten more disciplined as to when I go to bed in my middle age.
Speaking of aging, we've reached the point where we need to move my parents down here so someone will be nearby if something happens to them. They've lived in the same house for 50 years, and while they're not hoarders, they've accumulated a lot of stuff. We've been going through everything, and figuring out who gets what. We have my grandmother's silver, so my mom's silver's going to the kid and one of my cousins. There are sooo many sets of dishes going to various family members. And so on. Meanwhile, we've been doing all of the paperwork so they'll actually have a place to move to down here. It's just been a lot.
Finally, I doubt that we'll be celebrating the solstice. We're looking at rain, rain, and maybe more rain for the next 3 days. I'm told the house we're living in has never flooded, so we'll see how well it holds up. The landlord put in french drains to control the flooding in the back yard, so they're certainly going to get a workout.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:35 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
Speaking of aging, we've reached the point where we need to move my parents down here so someone will be nearby if something happens to them. They've lived in the same house for 50 years, and while they're not hoarders, they've accumulated a lot of stuff. We've been going through everything, and figuring out who gets what. We have my grandmother's silver, so my mom's silver's going to the kid and one of my cousins. There are sooo many sets of dishes going to various family members. And so on. Meanwhile, we've been doing all of the paperwork so they'll actually have a place to move to down here. It's just been a lot.
Finally, I doubt that we'll be celebrating the solstice. We're looking at rain, rain, and maybe more rain for the next 3 days. I'm told the house we're living in has never flooded, so we'll see how well it holds up. The landlord put in french drains to control the flooding in the back yard, so they're certainly going to get a workout.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:35 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
elkevelvet, in my experience schools keep cat litter around for the same reason cinemas and nightclubs do: it's excellent for cleaning up barf. (and er... other bodily fluids).
Happy midsummer everyone!
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:38 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
Happy midsummer everyone!
posted by Pallas Athena at 7:38 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
Every Monday this summer is now a Longest Day for me, as my job starts at 7:30 am and I am taking a class that, thanks to it being on West Coast time, ends at 2 am. Then 4 hours of sleep (ish) before getting up at 7 am Tuesday to go back to work. It will be a challenging 10 weeks, particularly since after about 1 am my brain seems to close up shop and refuse to take in any new information. (The class is recorded, fortunately, so I can re-listen to that last hour, but the teacher expects students to be in the live class for the entire duration). It's nothing I haven't done before (shoutout to May Kasahara re: animation school - I was on a 'sleep every other night' schedule for a while) but as I get older I am trying to prioritize my sleep and physical and mental health more than I have in the past. So far a nap on Mondays between the end of my workday and the start of my class, plus an eyemask to let me sleep past the 5:30 sunrise is helping.
posted by matcha action at 7:39 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
posted by matcha action at 7:39 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
I swore off staying up late when I was no longer married to a musician and I haven't missed it at all. I did the night owl thing as a kid and in college, now bedtime at 10 is my friend.
My Longest Nights would definitely be the first months of caring for my barely sleeping newborn.
I am floating gently through summer so far with some steady part time work and appreciation of what I have, plus a promising new therapist.
posted by emjaybee at 7:49 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
My Longest Nights would definitely be the first months of caring for my barely sleeping newborn.
I am floating gently through summer so far with some steady part time work and appreciation of what I have, plus a promising new therapist.
posted by emjaybee at 7:49 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
The conservative freakout over kitty litter is even more unbearably ironic: some schools are stocking cat litter in classrooms in case students need to be confined there during a prolonged emergency situation such as an active school shooting:
The Jefferson County school district disputed Ganahl’s claims and said its dress code prohibits costumes at school. The district — where Columbine High School is located — has been stocking classrooms with small amounts of cat litter since 2017, but as part of “go buckets” that contain emergency supplies in case students are locked in a classroom during a shooting. The buckets also contain candy for diabetic students, a map of the school, flashlights, wet wipes and first aid items.[Source]posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:49 AM on June 17 [6 favorites]
I was at a dinner table yesterday and someone brought that whole "they're letting kids pee in cat boxes in school" thing
Even in polite company, my response would be a flat but direct and uncompromising "that's not true". I'd expect the person to treat my response as a clear indication that such unsupported crap assertions are not acceptable, at least in my presence, and they would hopefully move on to less contentious subjects. If they double down or get confrontational about it, that's enough indication that it's time for me to take my leave.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:50 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
Even in polite company, my response would be a flat but direct and uncompromising "that's not true". I'd expect the person to treat my response as a clear indication that such unsupported crap assertions are not acceptable, at least in my presence, and they would hopefully move on to less contentious subjects. If they double down or get confrontational about it, that's enough indication that it's time for me to take my leave.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:50 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
Schools also keep cat litter on hand in case kids have to go to the bathroom while they're on lockdown.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:50 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
posted by Spike Glee at 7:50 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
If they double down or get confrontational about it, that's enough indication that it's time for me to take my leave.
the thought crossed my mind, but the person saying the stuff is not someone I will encounter frequently and perhaps less than 2-3 times per year, and there is a good chance I will never have a meal with them again. they have a relationship with the person who will be getting married to my partner's child (November) and I'm hopeful that relationship will become attenuated over time and distance.
in short, I am playing the long game
posted by elkevelvet at 8:06 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
the thought crossed my mind, but the person saying the stuff is not someone I will encounter frequently and perhaps less than 2-3 times per year, and there is a good chance I will never have a meal with them again. they have a relationship with the person who will be getting married to my partner's child (November) and I'm hopeful that relationship will become attenuated over time and distance.
in short, I am playing the long game
posted by elkevelvet at 8:06 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
Schools also keep cat litter on hand in case kids have to go to the bathroom while they're on lockdown.
Which honestly strikes me as the perfect retort to the kind of person who would dare do the "they're letting kids pee in litterboxes" thing. ("Yeah, but only if they're on lockdown because the GOP won't pass sane gun control laws.")
....The interview that was supposed to be at 11:30 has asked to postpone to this afternoon or tomorrow. That's fine; I'm going to be around today anyway to babysit the front door; the roommate is waiting on a package someone needs to sign for and it is due today, and he got unexpectedly called into the office today and asked if I could field that. It's his birthday today so I might also try whipping up a surprise cake while I am hanging around the house.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:09 AM on June 17 [7 favorites]
Which honestly strikes me as the perfect retort to the kind of person who would dare do the "they're letting kids pee in litterboxes" thing. ("Yeah, but only if they're on lockdown because the GOP won't pass sane gun control laws.")
....The interview that was supposed to be at 11:30 has asked to postpone to this afternoon or tomorrow. That's fine; I'm going to be around today anyway to babysit the front door; the roommate is waiting on a package someone needs to sign for and it is due today, and he got unexpectedly called into the office today and asked if I could field that. It's his birthday today so I might also try whipping up a surprise cake while I am hanging around the house.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:09 AM on June 17 [7 favorites]
I realize that "summer" is an astronomical phenomenon above all else ... but the thought of being "halfway" through it, while central Texas will be witheringly hot for another four months, is enough for a mordant laugh at least.
At least I have a real vacation coming up. I didn't leave Austin once during our second-hottest summer on record, and it was my first experience of seasonal affective disorder. Can't handle another consecutive year of that.
posted by mykescipark at 8:40 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
At least I have a real vacation coming up. I didn't leave Austin once during our second-hottest summer on record, and it was my first experience of seasonal affective disorder. Can't handle another consecutive year of that.
posted by mykescipark at 8:40 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
I harvested some more strawberries this morning. So sweet! The problem with everbearing strawberries is that you have to check them every day. In warm weather, a whole batch of strawberries can go from dull yellow to ripe red overnight. But it's a reason to go outside and prowl around the garden, so I won't complain.
posted by SPrintF at 8:43 AM on June 17 [6 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 8:43 AM on June 17 [6 favorites]
talk of strawberries reminds me of my mom with her headlamp out at night, fighting the slugs that would creep in to devour her stuff
always a 3-pronged defence with her: little beer traps, plus she'd spread a bit of diatomaceous earth around
posted by elkevelvet at 8:53 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
always a 3-pronged defence with her: little beer traps, plus she'd spread a bit of diatomaceous earth around
posted by elkevelvet at 8:53 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
Waiting to see how the US National Science Foundation budget cuts are going to affect my place of employment. Since we run on a shoestring anyway, everyone is just sort of shrugging and exchanging looks.
In other news, I have deeply religious family getting married this month, and I'm practicing keeping my mouth shut. As a habitual over-sharer, it's not going well, but I keep hoping.
posted by SunSnork at 9:20 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
In other news, I have deeply religious family getting married this month, and I'm practicing keeping my mouth shut. As a habitual over-sharer, it's not going well, but I keep hoping.
posted by SunSnork at 9:20 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
Midsummer always upsets me a little. The idea of us being halfway through summer when I've only been able to wear shorts a few days makes me want to cry. The idea that the days are about to start getting shorter again makes me want to throw up. I'm wearing a wooly hat in bed because my wife wants the windows open because it's summer.
However, it's not just midsummer, it's about to be midsOmmar, and we are confirming our RSVPs, checking we have enough wood and charcoal and going back and forth to the state run alcohol store and about to spend the day getting properly drunk with 30 or so of our friends and theirs. The games have been organised in advance and the menus are egg-halfs with caviar and pickled herring and the tiniest of new potatoes, boiled with dill. The songs during lunch will be terribly rude as we slam our akvavits in hopefully blazing sunshine. The strawberry cakes and pitch black coffee will give us a break from the games before we get into the camping and swimming capture-the-flag.... my team will not win. By the time the fire has died down after our evening meal of kolbulle, and some late night skinny dipping, there will be a short moment where it's actually very dark. Usually that when the young men of our clan get boisterous before we tell them to fuck off to the sauna, but this year they are elsewhere and I think the guitars will come out.
posted by Iteki at 9:44 AM on June 17 [9 favorites]
However, it's not just midsummer, it's about to be midsOmmar, and we are confirming our RSVPs, checking we have enough wood and charcoal and going back and forth to the state run alcohol store and about to spend the day getting properly drunk with 30 or so of our friends and theirs. The games have been organised in advance and the menus are egg-halfs with caviar and pickled herring and the tiniest of new potatoes, boiled with dill. The songs during lunch will be terribly rude as we slam our akvavits in hopefully blazing sunshine. The strawberry cakes and pitch black coffee will give us a break from the games before we get into the camping and swimming capture-the-flag.... my team will not win. By the time the fire has died down after our evening meal of kolbulle, and some late night skinny dipping, there will be a short moment where it's actually very dark. Usually that when the young men of our clan get boisterous before we tell them to fuck off to the sauna, but this year they are elsewhere and I think the guitars will come out.
posted by Iteki at 9:44 AM on June 17 [9 favorites]
estonia.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:49 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:49 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
I can't recall a particular longest day, but a prime contender for "longest hour" was last Friday at 7am, sitting alone in a hospital room, dressed in a gown and waiting for someone to come and take me down to theater. First time in hospital for anything in 70 years and this was going to be heart surgery, so just a trifle nervous. It was a long hour.
It feels pretty weird to have had all sorts of stuff done of which I was completely unaware at the time, and I have to say I almost preferred that to the dentist, where one is present for the whole nasty business.
Anyway, I'm still here, it was all fixed, and as a bonus they tell me that rest of the heart is fine. I now have six weeks off work to recover, which is grand, so can we please have some English summer, now that I'm in a position to enjoy it?
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:56 AM on June 17 [15 favorites]
It feels pretty weird to have had all sorts of stuff done of which I was completely unaware at the time, and I have to say I almost preferred that to the dentist, where one is present for the whole nasty business.
Anyway, I'm still here, it was all fixed, and as a bonus they tell me that rest of the heart is fine. I now have six weeks off work to recover, which is grand, so can we please have some English summer, now that I'm in a position to enjoy it?
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:56 AM on June 17 [15 favorites]
You paint a great picture Iteki, a real 'pick me up and take me out of my world picture' for which many thanks. I share your distress about the shortness of the shorts season. To my horror, regret and disbelief (in equal measure) I am bundled in thermals top to bottom. In June. While that does not even begin to register on the richter scale of real problems, in my little bubble, it is a calamity. My legs deserve better.
posted by dutchrick at 9:59 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
posted by dutchrick at 9:59 AM on June 17 [4 favorites]
Halfway through summer? Thank god. I believe I was designed for life elsewhere. As it is, I live in Ohio and summers here are hot, humid, and dry (HOW, how is it both humid AND lacking rain??) and I absolutely hate it. The sun makes my head hurt, it just should not be 90 degrees Fahrenheit ever anywhere (come at me), and the sun doesn't go down until 9:00pm or later what the actual fuck how am I supposed to start winding down for sleep when the light outside is saying otherwise?
ANYWAY. I don't like summer and I know I am in the minority but there you have it.
posted by cooker girl at 10:03 AM on June 17 [8 favorites]
ANYWAY. I don't like summer and I know I am in the minority but there you have it.
posted by cooker girl at 10:03 AM on June 17 [8 favorites]
I don't like summer either, cooker girl - let's stay in the AC and drink iced tea. :)
My longest day was ironically winter solstice 2001 - woke up at 3:30am with first labor pangs, then endured wretched back labor all day long, then dismissive hospital staff left me to push unproductively for FIVE HOURS. Baby was finally yanked out via c-section at 7:00am the next day, weighing 10lb 13oz (4.95kg for the metric peeps). Got an awesome baby out of the whole thing, though. Still bitter about that hospital. *spits across Chicago in their direction*
posted by sencha at 11:00 AM on June 17 [10 favorites]
My longest day was ironically winter solstice 2001 - woke up at 3:30am with first labor pangs, then endured wretched back labor all day long, then dismissive hospital staff left me to push unproductively for FIVE HOURS. Baby was finally yanked out via c-section at 7:00am the next day, weighing 10lb 13oz (4.95kg for the metric peeps). Got an awesome baby out of the whole thing, though. Still bitter about that hospital. *spits across Chicago in their direction*
posted by sencha at 11:00 AM on June 17 [10 favorites]
DirtyOldTown, for cousin Z., how about some version of one of these:
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
— Epictetus
Be teachable. You’re not always right.
— unknown
posted by concinnity at 11:04 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
— Epictetus
Be teachable. You’re not always right.
— unknown
posted by concinnity at 11:04 AM on June 17 [5 favorites]
I like the long days. I don't like the heat.
I've been documenting how to built a pen plotter out of cheap hardware and 3D printed parts over on my mastodon.art account. It's slow going because I'm being thorough about it. My intent is when I'm done to release all the plans and shopping lists for personal use, perhaps with a tip jar.
Also starting to put together all the high res scans of my work to go up on the Internet Archive for posterity. I've got enough of an ego to feel like other people might want to see them someday.
I also need to give IA some of the old games and source codes I worked on in the 80s and 90s if I can find them.
I'm not sick as far as I know, but preserving one's legacy should start early so it doesn't have to be rushed.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:09 AM on June 17 [6 favorites]
I've been documenting how to built a pen plotter out of cheap hardware and 3D printed parts over on my mastodon.art account. It's slow going because I'm being thorough about it. My intent is when I'm done to release all the plans and shopping lists for personal use, perhaps with a tip jar.
Also starting to put together all the high res scans of my work to go up on the Internet Archive for posterity. I've got enough of an ego to feel like other people might want to see them someday.
I also need to give IA some of the old games and source codes I worked on in the 80s and 90s if I can find them.
I'm not sick as far as I know, but preserving one's legacy should start early so it doesn't have to be rushed.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:09 AM on June 17 [6 favorites]
Also an idle note that Github is not an archival medium. Putting your free/open source and info there and hoping it will stay available is a gamble on Microsoft's [laugh] generosity. The Internet Archive is the place for stuff you want actually archived.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:15 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:15 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
Another summer-disliker here. I spent the first 34 years of my life in the southeastern US and I absolutely hated the heat and humidity every one of those years. I moved to the mountains of western North Carolina, which was great for a while but thanks to climate change the hot damp summers followed me there a few years later. After that, moving to the Pacific Northwest was a blessing in many ways, with short arid summers near the top of the list. Although (again, "thanks" climate change) that's been changing even here - the summer humidity is still low, but summers are getting hotter and longer. Maybe I need to move even farther north...
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:15 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:15 AM on June 17 [3 favorites]
As it is, I live in Ohio and summers here are hot, humid, and dry...
Can relate. The most I've ever sweated (apart from a very good time in a sauna it's inappropriate to mention here) was when I was living in Oxford, Ohio as my partner of the time worked in the local university. Even at dawn it was (too) hot. I foolishly walked the 1.5 miles from the apartment to the centre of town one mid-morning and, despite sticking to the shadows as much as possible, was utterly drenched in sweat on arrival.
I guess what, technically, was the longest day for me was a flight from London to Los Angeles. Heck that plane seemed to take an eternity to cross the USA, and I kept microsleeping my way through passport control (which seemed endless at LAX) before handing a bundle of cash to a taxi driver because I simply wanted to get to my hotel and could not be arsed to find the bus stop. Waking up the next morning made me realise I wasn't in the Outer Hebrides.
Though probably the best "longest day" happened a few months earlier, almost exactly 16 years ago. I was in Stockholm and had time to kill so, on a whim, bought an all-day ferry ticket to see how far I could go, and what I could see. The answers being (a) surprisingly far and (b) a lot, including many, many, islands, houses, trees, a few well-situated cafes (which is good because, as much as I love Stockholm archipelago travel, the coffee on the ferries was ... not good), and such a variety of boats, from tiny rowing ones to huge tourist cruise liners. The picture of the spray is probably my personal favourite I've ever taken, and there were some repercussions of that day which are still rippling through my life. For another time...
But, here and now, it's time to prepare for our midsummer druidic ritual. My allocated task is probably the most important, ensuring that there is adequate provision of that most essential requirement of such events.
Cake.
posted by Wordshore at 11:16 AM on June 17 [10 favorites]
Can relate. The most I've ever sweated (apart from a very good time in a sauna it's inappropriate to mention here) was when I was living in Oxford, Ohio as my partner of the time worked in the local university. Even at dawn it was (too) hot. I foolishly walked the 1.5 miles from the apartment to the centre of town one mid-morning and, despite sticking to the shadows as much as possible, was utterly drenched in sweat on arrival.
I guess what, technically, was the longest day for me was a flight from London to Los Angeles. Heck that plane seemed to take an eternity to cross the USA, and I kept microsleeping my way through passport control (which seemed endless at LAX) before handing a bundle of cash to a taxi driver because I simply wanted to get to my hotel and could not be arsed to find the bus stop. Waking up the next morning made me realise I wasn't in the Outer Hebrides.
Though probably the best "longest day" happened a few months earlier, almost exactly 16 years ago. I was in Stockholm and had time to kill so, on a whim, bought an all-day ferry ticket to see how far I could go, and what I could see. The answers being (a) surprisingly far and (b) a lot, including many, many, islands, houses, trees, a few well-situated cafes (which is good because, as much as I love Stockholm archipelago travel, the coffee on the ferries was ... not good), and such a variety of boats, from tiny rowing ones to huge tourist cruise liners. The picture of the spray is probably my personal favourite I've ever taken, and there were some repercussions of that day which are still rippling through my life. For another time...
But, here and now, it's time to prepare for our midsummer druidic ritual. My allocated task is probably the most important, ensuring that there is adequate provision of that most essential requirement of such events.
Cake.
posted by Wordshore at 11:16 AM on June 17 [10 favorites]
I think my longest day was probably 6a-7a (25 hours) that was a work day and then a volunteer shift that went extra long.
I love the summer, and the long days. Cycling to work in Seattle is safer, and driving into the evening as well.
I've rediscovered my love of walking, only this phase has included listening to podcasts (Kill James Bond, because it's been mentioned here, and How Did This Get Made).
I probably will back off walking if/when I get my running practice into shape. But for now, with the sun, it's just great
posted by Gorgik at 11:37 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
I love the summer, and the long days. Cycling to work in Seattle is safer, and driving into the evening as well.
I've rediscovered my love of walking, only this phase has included listening to podcasts (Kill James Bond, because it's been mentioned here, and How Did This Get Made).
I probably will back off walking if/when I get my running practice into shape. But for now, with the sun, it's just great
posted by Gorgik at 11:37 AM on June 17 [2 favorites]
“The Longest Day” was also the name of the last storyline from DC Comics The Demon. Perhaps Etrigan might chime in on his experience there, but it looks like he might have stepped away from MF for a while now.
posted by notoriety public at 12:01 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]
posted by notoriety public at 12:01 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]
Longest day: when I foolishly forgot that I needed to bring my Green Card with me when I went to Italy in order to get back in the US afterwards. Sunday I couldn't get on my flight. Monday I went to the embassy, where they tried to get rid of me for an hour even though I had made an appointment, tried unsuccessfully to call the airport and speak to someone in English, and arrived at the airport just after all the American airlines shut down for the day (someone very kindly stayed late to help me.)
The next flight out wasn't for 23 hours. So I ate approxomately three bad caprese sandwiches, finished Geoff Ryman's Air and read a chunk of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, eventually got on the plane, then had to spend a couple of hours waiting to talk to Customs and Immigration once I landed at JFK airport in New York. Then an hour on Long Island Railroad and subways to make it back to my apartment.
I had, at this point, been awake for something like forty-three hours (though I imagine I dozed off a LITTLE in the airport and on the flight). I went to bed around three in the afternoon and slept until I had to get up for work the next morning.
I still deeply resent Freedom. (Air was quite good.)
posted by Jeanne at 12:28 PM on June 17 [6 favorites]
The next flight out wasn't for 23 hours. So I ate approxomately three bad caprese sandwiches, finished Geoff Ryman's Air and read a chunk of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom, eventually got on the plane, then had to spend a couple of hours waiting to talk to Customs and Immigration once I landed at JFK airport in New York. Then an hour on Long Island Railroad and subways to make it back to my apartment.
I had, at this point, been awake for something like forty-three hours (though I imagine I dozed off a LITTLE in the airport and on the flight). I went to bed around three in the afternoon and slept until I had to get up for work the next morning.
I still deeply resent Freedom. (Air was quite good.)
posted by Jeanne at 12:28 PM on June 17 [6 favorites]
In honor of the Cabal, I plan to spend the three days of solstice watching Midsommar, eating smoked salmon and drinking peppermint schnapps. I'm making a goat and a human figure from spent matchsticks from the stove, so the figures can look burnt, without actually being burnt. That and also painting diatoms and light on water. Skol! Ari Aster has forever made me terrified of too much sunlight.
posted by effluvia at 12:58 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
posted by effluvia at 12:58 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
I have all-over muscle aches when it's cool, cloudy and--especially--rainy, which is much of the year here in the northwest US. All winter I dream of the long days of June. After the solstice I will sadly notice the shrinking of the days (which doesn't become an issue until my annual September camping trip). I try to be outside as much as possible during the summer. Being outside in warm sunshine is the only time I feel normal. It's been cool and damp this last week but tomorrow we start a period of warmth (80sF)!
We are still grappling with the suicide of our daughter 3 weeks ago. We're immensely sad. There is so much to do and our brains are mush. It's very hard to get anything done personally or at work. At this point I think we're having normal bereavement. Fortunately I have a few days off work coming up. We're doing a day trip to the coast and another to Portland. My top agenda for Portland is: Powell's, Lardo, Pine State Biscuits.
posted by neuron at 1:03 PM on June 17 [8 favorites]
We are still grappling with the suicide of our daughter 3 weeks ago. We're immensely sad. There is so much to do and our brains are mush. It's very hard to get anything done personally or at work. At this point I think we're having normal bereavement. Fortunately I have a few days off work coming up. We're doing a day trip to the coast and another to Portland. My top agenda for Portland is: Powell's, Lardo, Pine State Biscuits.
posted by neuron at 1:03 PM on June 17 [8 favorites]
This longest day is coming up. It is my first time living so far north. Even now, you can go out for a stroll in the evening and inadvertently stay out too long. Last week the sun was still high in the sky when I finished doing the dishes. I went out for a walk, saw nice things, chatted with neighbours. The sun was going down, so I headed home to prepare for work the next day. Oops, I got home, with the sun just under the horizon, at 1:15 am.
posted by SnowRottie at 1:35 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]
posted by SnowRottie at 1:35 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]
We will pray just like the Druids,
Drinking strange fermented fluids,
Go dancing naked through the woo-ids,
They're good enough for me.
posted by credulous at 2:21 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]
Drinking strange fermented fluids,
Go dancing naked through the woo-ids,
They're good enough for me.
posted by credulous at 2:21 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]
My Longest Day was the day before and day of moving from NC to OR. This had been planned for at least a couple of months, and I'd certainly gotten a good start on packing, but I vastly underestimated how much packing I had left to do and how long it would take.
The day before leaving, not only was I frantically trying to pack up whatever else I was taking with me, but I hadn't realized just how much stuff I wasn't taking with me: I'd rented a small - actually too small - moving pod so my storage space was severely limited. I probably ended up leaving a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff at the curb, along with a couple bags of trash next to the already-full large trash can. After I finished packing the pod quite late that evening I spent the rest of the night cleaning the empty house (wasn't gonna lose my deposit, by golly!), then went straight to a friends house the next morning with just enough time to take a shower before getting a ride to the airport.
I don't remember either taking off or landing because I fell asleep as soon as I sat down in the plane; unfortunately that first leg of the trip was too short for anything more than a quick nap. The cross-country leg, as Wordshore observed above, is indeed a long one but I was sandwiched in between two other people and was too uncomfortable to get much sleep.
I finally reached the place I was staying around mid-afternoon local time (felt like dinner time to my internal clock). It was July 4th so my housemates offered to take me downtown to watch the fireworks that evening, but by then I was dead to the world...they said they knocked on my door and called my name a few times, but I was so deep asleep I never even heard them.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:50 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
The day before leaving, not only was I frantically trying to pack up whatever else I was taking with me, but I hadn't realized just how much stuff I wasn't taking with me: I'd rented a small - actually too small - moving pod so my storage space was severely limited. I probably ended up leaving a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff at the curb, along with a couple bags of trash next to the already-full large trash can. After I finished packing the pod quite late that evening I spent the rest of the night cleaning the empty house (wasn't gonna lose my deposit, by golly!), then went straight to a friends house the next morning with just enough time to take a shower before getting a ride to the airport.
I don't remember either taking off or landing because I fell asleep as soon as I sat down in the plane; unfortunately that first leg of the trip was too short for anything more than a quick nap. The cross-country leg, as Wordshore observed above, is indeed a long one but I was sandwiched in between two other people and was too uncomfortable to get much sleep.
I finally reached the place I was staying around mid-afternoon local time (felt like dinner time to my internal clock). It was July 4th so my housemates offered to take me downtown to watch the fireworks that evening, but by then I was dead to the world...they said they knocked on my door and called my name a few times, but I was so deep asleep I never even heard them.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:50 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
I had a two hour solo gig last week, they were happy, they paid decently, and I'd play for them again. But it was sad. No one was there to listen to the music and the room was small enough that the person hiring me asked me to keep my mute on for the whole two hours. My instrument is quite loud, on its own, so, you know, whatever. I just think it's a bit of irony, wanting to hire a violinist in particular and then making sure no one can hear them very well at an event that you want background music only for. Much cheaper to just not have live music. I swear I'm not complaining though. They paid me, I got to play whatever I wanted to.
I have a gig next month that's 20 minutes of playing for a dedication of a park bench and that's interesting because they don't want sad music but not particularly happy either. The guy was British so maybe English folk tunes? Or maybe our old standby, Bach.
People keep asking me to go to sessions in various locations for Irish trad music which, as I'm unemployed currently, aren't super feasible. I'm only willing at the moment to do gigs that are paying me. I haven't quite figured out how to have that conversation with anyone because I don't want to talk to about being unemployed mostly in my real life.
posted by wurl1tzer_c0 at 2:54 PM on June 17 [5 favorites]
I have a gig next month that's 20 minutes of playing for a dedication of a park bench and that's interesting because they don't want sad music but not particularly happy either. The guy was British so maybe English folk tunes? Or maybe our old standby, Bach.
People keep asking me to go to sessions in various locations for Irish trad music which, as I'm unemployed currently, aren't super feasible. I'm only willing at the moment to do gigs that are paying me. I haven't quite figured out how to have that conversation with anyone because I don't want to talk to about being unemployed mostly in my real life.
posted by wurl1tzer_c0 at 2:54 PM on June 17 [5 favorites]
When I was in my 20s (so very long ago now) I once pulled two all-nighters in a row to get some now long-forgotten software product to some undoubtedly actually unimportant "deadline". I used to be able to live on 3-4 hours of sleep per night, and indeed did, but no longer really have that ability. I can pull an all-nighter if I have to, but no longer think anything is important enough to do so, or rather nothing not involving another person's well-being.
posted by maxwelton at 2:55 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 2:55 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]
My longest "day" was driving 24 hours straight from Los Angeles to Tulsa stopping only for gas and bathroom breaks. Driving through the west Texas at night rarely seeing another vehicle and no lights of civilization on either side of the road made it seem to last forever. Never doing that again.
posted by downtohisturtles at 3:06 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]
posted by downtohisturtles at 3:06 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]
In terms of time, the (back) labor of kiddo would be my longest day.
In terms of emotional fallout, my longest day was the night my mom died. My dad woke me from a dead sleep at 11:00 PM and asked me to come in the morning. I packed up and made the three hour drive to the hospital right away because I knew that I was not going to sleep at that point anyway. I had to stop at my office to collect my laptop first and man, the support night shift knew how to p.a.r.t.y. Music blasting, lots of chatter, tons of food being shared. Stopping at a rural western Pennsylvania Sheetz at 2:30 AM was also quite an experience. I didn’t sleep for several days. Of all the hard things I had to do over those days, returning my mom’s library books and cancelling her card was the most difficult.
I’m at the mid-end of a respiratory infection (it has migrated from my head to my lungs) and received a gentle scolding from one of the senior leaders to “get some rest”. As we were notified with very short notice to vacate our space and move to a higher floor, I (as somewhat junior yet still senior leadership) came into the office today to pack up a bunch of miscellaneous items and move what I could for the several coworkers on vacation/unable to come in at the moment. (Yes, there were movers hired but we are a weird bunch who basically said “fuck it” and moved ourselves).
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 3:20 PM on June 17 [5 favorites]
In terms of emotional fallout, my longest day was the night my mom died. My dad woke me from a dead sleep at 11:00 PM and asked me to come in the morning. I packed up and made the three hour drive to the hospital right away because I knew that I was not going to sleep at that point anyway. I had to stop at my office to collect my laptop first and man, the support night shift knew how to p.a.r.t.y. Music blasting, lots of chatter, tons of food being shared. Stopping at a rural western Pennsylvania Sheetz at 2:30 AM was also quite an experience. I didn’t sleep for several days. Of all the hard things I had to do over those days, returning my mom’s library books and cancelling her card was the most difficult.
I’m at the mid-end of a respiratory infection (it has migrated from my head to my lungs) and received a gentle scolding from one of the senior leaders to “get some rest”. As we were notified with very short notice to vacate our space and move to a higher floor, I (as somewhat junior yet still senior leadership) came into the office today to pack up a bunch of miscellaneous items and move what I could for the several coworkers on vacation/unable to come in at the moment. (Yes, there were movers hired but we are a weird bunch who basically said “fuck it” and moved ourselves).
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 3:20 PM on June 17 [5 favorites]
I have been in a somewhat unpleasant state of suspense this week, as my regular eye exam a couple of weeks ago revealed that the distance vision in my right eye was out of whack not because my prescription had expired (although it had), but because there is gunk (technical term: hard exudates) on my retina. I would really rather prefer it not be there. And right now we have no idea why it's there--there are a very long list of potential reasons, yet nothing else appeared to be wrong with my eye, and I have no symptoms of macular degeneration. So Friday I have to see a specialist. At the very least, I will probably have to have surgery, as the gunk can't be left there without risk of permanent damage. I've always been aware of potential danger to my retinas because of how extreme my near-sightedness is (-12 diopters!), so I am trying to cheer myself up by saying, "well, at least the retina didn't detach..."
posted by thomas j wise at 5:44 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
posted by thomas j wise at 5:44 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
→
it should be renamed COVIDfest, after last year's debacle.
My longest day is usually my birthday, since it hits just after midsummer. It makes me a little sad because I know the long slide into dark winter days has begun. Winter days in Toronto aren't quite as shitey as they are in Glasgow, though.
Our wild garden has a huge white mulberry bushed sprouted in the middle of it, overgrowing the deck. The mulberries are peaking right now, and the tree is full of nomming animals. A groundhog made it up on deck and started stripping all the branches it can reach. Then there was this little visitor ...
posted by scruss at 6:05 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]
the demo I was intending to do at Kansasfest next month
it should be renamed COVIDfest, after last year's debacle.
My longest day is usually my birthday, since it hits just after midsummer. It makes me a little sad because I know the long slide into dark winter days has begun. Winter days in Toronto aren't quite as shitey as they are in Glasgow, though.
Our wild garden has a huge white mulberry bushed sprouted in the middle of it, overgrowing the deck. The mulberries are peaking right now, and the tree is full of nomming animals. A groundhog made it up on deck and started stripping all the branches it can reach. Then there was this little visitor ...
posted by scruss at 6:05 PM on June 17 [2 favorites]
there is gunk (technical term: hard exudates) on my retina
Heck, a few passes with some 800-grit sandpaper'll clean that right up!
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:58 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]
Heck, a few passes with some 800-grit sandpaper'll clean that right up!
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:58 PM on June 17 [4 favorites]
I was going to write meta and then link to metatalk about chat filter.
so, it's a 119° in the kitchen and the prep guy is in the freezer after 5 minutes I go in there and his sitting on a metal rack just staring and I'm like, Jeremy Bentham, to cold, try the walk-in, there's a desk.
little phone, bottle opener, 15 watt lamp
posted by clavdivs at 8:09 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
so, it's a 119° in the kitchen and the prep guy is in the freezer after 5 minutes I go in there and his sitting on a metal rack just staring and I'm like, Jeremy Bentham, to cold, try the walk-in, there's a desk.
little phone, bottle opener, 15 watt lamp
posted by clavdivs at 8:09 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
eeeee anything involving eyes is my body horror trigger and I am shuddering in sympathy with thomas j wise
So I have cookbook of small (serves only 2-4 people) cakes, and it was my roommate's birthday today - so I decided to whip up a small cake and surprise him. He was pleased....and amused, because his co-workers had the same idea. When I presented him with my cake, he showed me the box containing THAT cake, and broke it to me that yes, he was definitely going to have some tonight, but "after my Grubhub order because I really should probably eat something that ISN'T cake first."
(Chocolate with a cocoa-spiked whipped cream frosting, and decorated with fresh cherries.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:19 PM on June 17 [6 favorites]
So I have cookbook of small (serves only 2-4 people) cakes, and it was my roommate's birthday today - so I decided to whip up a small cake and surprise him. He was pleased....and amused, because his co-workers had the same idea. When I presented him with my cake, he showed me the box containing THAT cake, and broke it to me that yes, he was definitely going to have some tonight, but "after my Grubhub order because I really should probably eat something that ISN'T cake first."
(Chocolate with a cocoa-spiked whipped cream frosting, and decorated with fresh cherries.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:19 PM on June 17 [6 favorites]
Incidentally, "small cakes" would be an excellent user name.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:34 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:34 PM on June 17 [3 favorites]
We've been having a lot of summer around here already. Long and very gray and street dusty (if that is the right pair of words) spring turned into summer in three days a month ago, and we had some serious heat for two weeks or so. Now its been a bit more normal, which is perfect for me. I turned 41 yesterday and a nearby good friend invited me over for some home made potato salad and grilled sausages and (this was the best thing) some Brazilian Lemonades, which is my favourite drink now.
posted by fridgebuzz at 2:48 AM on June 18 [3 favorites]
posted by fridgebuzz at 2:48 AM on June 18 [3 favorites]
not my longest night, but a friend's story always stuck with me
he and a little buddy (they might've been 12) found out that grandma would pay them each a buck to kill and clean a chicken, she raised chickens and it was coming on when they'd be selling off chickens to go into family freezers
the thought of all the wealth they'd make momentarily blinded them to the reality of the situation, and by the time they'd dispatched a few dozen chickens grandma came out and asked "who the hell is cleaning these birds??"
they only get a dollar for a cleaned chicken. I am not sure that my friend had ever cleaned a chicken in his life, and he and his friend worked through the night cleaning chickens. Those of you who know, know
posted by elkevelvet at 6:58 AM on June 18 [3 favorites]
he and a little buddy (they might've been 12) found out that grandma would pay them each a buck to kill and clean a chicken, she raised chickens and it was coming on when they'd be selling off chickens to go into family freezers
the thought of all the wealth they'd make momentarily blinded them to the reality of the situation, and by the time they'd dispatched a few dozen chickens grandma came out and asked "who the hell is cleaning these birds??"
they only get a dollar for a cleaned chicken. I am not sure that my friend had ever cleaned a chicken in his life, and he and his friend worked through the night cleaning chickens. Those of you who know, know
posted by elkevelvet at 6:58 AM on June 18 [3 favorites]
Bracing ourselves for the heat here.
My roommate is working from home today, and I've got a lead on an interview with a recruiter for Friday so I'm clocking off job hunting today. (I sent out some applications, don't worry.) I was going to get the maple froyo done by noon - it needs to rest in the freezer a spell and I have something going on this afternoon at 3. I did a deep dive into Frozen Yogurt 101 yesterday, and people swear by a method that involves straining the yogurt (it has a lot of whey that can make it icy unless you do that), and then adding it to a combo of milk, cream, a shot of corn syrup (that inhibits iciness too), and some cream cheese (for the tang). Which was perfect, since I also got some cream cheese in that same swag bag where I got the yogurt.
....Except this morning, as I was getting things going just now, I noticed that it is a plant based cream cheese. I don't know enough about whether that would impact the recipe, and I'm already playing with some variables a bit; I'm swapping out half the sugar for more maple syrup, and adding a shot of bourbon - both are adding some liquid, but one also has alcohol, and that inhibits the iciness. But that's still a couple of modifications and I don't think I should make any more. So I think I need to go on an emergency cream cheese run in a bit.
At least I was able to parcel out what I need from the strained yogurt - a quart of yogurt strains down to about a cup and a half, and I only needed a cup and a quarter; the rest went into a smoothie breakfast just now and I have that space reclaimed in my fridge, huzzah.
I've also bookmarked a number of salad recipes from the Moosewood book for Hot Weather Meal purposes, none of which will involve more than a brief stint in the kitchen to either cook noodles or some grain; they'll also all make a dent in the produce backlog (spinach! So much spinach) as well.
....I don't think I was made for an office, I think I was meant to be like Nanny Ogg or something, puttering in the garden and a kitchen and anyone can drop in or a chat or a meal.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:13 AM on June 18 [5 favorites]
My roommate is working from home today, and I've got a lead on an interview with a recruiter for Friday so I'm clocking off job hunting today. (I sent out some applications, don't worry.) I was going to get the maple froyo done by noon - it needs to rest in the freezer a spell and I have something going on this afternoon at 3. I did a deep dive into Frozen Yogurt 101 yesterday, and people swear by a method that involves straining the yogurt (it has a lot of whey that can make it icy unless you do that), and then adding it to a combo of milk, cream, a shot of corn syrup (that inhibits iciness too), and some cream cheese (for the tang). Which was perfect, since I also got some cream cheese in that same swag bag where I got the yogurt.
....Except this morning, as I was getting things going just now, I noticed that it is a plant based cream cheese. I don't know enough about whether that would impact the recipe, and I'm already playing with some variables a bit; I'm swapping out half the sugar for more maple syrup, and adding a shot of bourbon - both are adding some liquid, but one also has alcohol, and that inhibits the iciness. But that's still a couple of modifications and I don't think I should make any more. So I think I need to go on an emergency cream cheese run in a bit.
At least I was able to parcel out what I need from the strained yogurt - a quart of yogurt strains down to about a cup and a half, and I only needed a cup and a quarter; the rest went into a smoothie breakfast just now and I have that space reclaimed in my fridge, huzzah.
I've also bookmarked a number of salad recipes from the Moosewood book for Hot Weather Meal purposes, none of which will involve more than a brief stint in the kitchen to either cook noodles or some grain; they'll also all make a dent in the produce backlog (spinach! So much spinach) as well.
....I don't think I was made for an office, I think I was meant to be like Nanny Ogg or something, puttering in the garden and a kitchen and anyone can drop in or a chat or a meal.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:13 AM on June 18 [5 favorites]
positive mind atoms to thomas j wise's eyeballs and EmpressCallipygos's job search. And to everyone else a few scrolls up with their own hassles or troubles.
I have to start applying for jobs today myself. Meh.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:01 AM on June 18 [5 favorites]
I have to start applying for jobs today myself. Meh.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:01 AM on June 18 [5 favorites]
DOT, you are actually the 4th person I've encountered on a job search at the moment. From what I've been told, if you're willing to go into an office as opposed to insisting on working from home that can give you an advantage.
(And a neighbor in my building is one such job hunter, he's officially joined our garden and is amenable to occasionally touching base with the job hunt stuff but I'm really trying to lay the groundwork for something else, wish me luck....)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:15 AM on June 18 [3 favorites]
(And a neighbor in my building is one such job hunter, he's officially joined our garden and is amenable to occasionally touching base with the job hunt stuff but I'm really trying to lay the groundwork for something else, wish me luck....)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:15 AM on June 18 [3 favorites]
I'm trying to transition to the "updating resume, contacting recruiters, and diligently submitting applications" phase of my layoff. But the truth is, I'm so disgusted by corporate America right now, I can barely stay at the computer for ten minutes before I want to pull my hair out.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:03 PM on June 18 [6 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:03 PM on June 18 [6 favorites]
I am sending out positive brain beams to anyone who is looking for work, or health, or otherwise struggling.
I, too, am looking for work. It is dismaying to see just how many of my former colleagues are also in the market. I am trying not to get frustrated, but the search is not easy.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:31 PM on June 18 [6 favorites]
I, too, am looking for work. It is dismaying to see just how many of my former colleagues are also in the market. I am trying not to get frustrated, but the search is not easy.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 3:31 PM on June 18 [6 favorites]
Very minor side note: but the phrase I use "I'm sending positive mind atoms" is something a group of friends made up 20+ years ago as a heathen substitute for "You're in my prayers." The very best friend I ever had died a few months back and I've become friends with a woman who is essentially his common law widow. She was having a hard time the other day and I told her I was sending positive mind atoms. She cried a little. "That's what Erik always said, too." He still said it years after we lost regular contact.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:18 PM on June 18 [11 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:18 PM on June 18 [11 favorites]
Good thoughts to all searching for work! I am searching for time, or maybe the ability to use time better. (Which you would think a person in their forties would have nailed down, but no.) I'm not sure if what's needed is more mental space, or more structure, and have settled on... piling on more things to do.
I just reached the top of the Rancho Gordo waitlist and committed to beans. It's enough for a weekly pot of beans for the next quarter, at which point more beans arrive. Also signed up for a summer crafting class. I do not need a new craft at this time, but my calendar and class openings aligned and it's something I did want to learn eventually.
posted by mersen at 7:46 PM on June 18 [2 favorites]
I just reached the top of the Rancho Gordo waitlist and committed to beans. It's enough for a weekly pot of beans for the next quarter, at which point more beans arrive. Also signed up for a summer crafting class. I do not need a new craft at this time, but my calendar and class openings aligned and it's something I did want to learn eventually.
posted by mersen at 7:46 PM on June 18 [2 favorites]
the ability to use time better. (Which you would think a person in their forties would have nailed down...
*laughs in disorganized procrastinating sexagenarian*
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:59 PM on June 18 [5 favorites]
*laughs in disorganized procrastinating sexagenarian*
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:59 PM on June 18 [5 favorites]
Good thoughts to the work searchers. Also good thoughts to any salary negotiators, because there appears to be fuckery afoot at that level.
Spouse was fired last year. Took some time off, accepted a contract to hire position. Contract at X, full-time at 8% reduction. Weirdness right from the beginning. Six months in, chaos happens, his manager gets fired (whoo boy, so much fun back story there). New manager and director are hired. Full-time gets pushed back. No hard feelings, knew this could happen. Time passes, some issues get resolved, spouse gets offer to come on full-time.
With a 12% reduction. Because the job title does not allow for the amount in the original offer. Spouse is displeased. This is not the original agreement. Has no evidence of the original agreement (save your emails!!!!). Asks to think about it.
Goes back to HR a week later. Offer has been reduced further, now at a 16% reduction. Spouse is incandescent and decides to remain on contract. Offer gets kicked back over to manager and director. Director tells HR to give him the job title that matches the original offer.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 3:36 AM on June 19 [4 favorites]
Spouse was fired last year. Took some time off, accepted a contract to hire position. Contract at X, full-time at 8% reduction. Weirdness right from the beginning. Six months in, chaos happens, his manager gets fired (whoo boy, so much fun back story there). New manager and director are hired. Full-time gets pushed back. No hard feelings, knew this could happen. Time passes, some issues get resolved, spouse gets offer to come on full-time.
With a 12% reduction. Because the job title does not allow for the amount in the original offer. Spouse is displeased. This is not the original agreement. Has no evidence of the original agreement (save your emails!!!!). Asks to think about it.
Goes back to HR a week later. Offer has been reduced further, now at a 16% reduction. Spouse is incandescent and decides to remain on contract. Offer gets kicked back over to manager and director. Director tells HR to give him the job title that matches the original offer.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 3:36 AM on June 19 [4 favorites]
Naturally and as usual, my deepest sympathies to hearts that grieve and best wishes to those who struggle with THE WEIGHT.
My longest day was 30 years ago or so and lasted 96 hours. Started on a Tuesday and ended Saturday, using only coffee and cigarettes, getting ready for and then running part of a LARP event. In retrospect, I don't recommend it.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:05 AM on June 19 [2 favorites]
My longest day was 30 years ago or so and lasted 96 hours. Started on a Tuesday and ended Saturday, using only coffee and cigarettes, getting ready for and then running part of a LARP event. In retrospect, I don't recommend it.
posted by ob1quixote at 5:05 AM on June 19 [2 favorites]
*pouts*
The heat and humidity are starting to crank up here in Brooklyn, and for whatever reason it is setting my allergies off something fierce. I've been dealing with a sinus headache for about twelve of the past 36 hours. However I've just heard that all the state parks and beaches have been declared free today and tomorrow so I may try to sneak out.
...Maple bourbon butter pecan froyo now exists in our fridge, though. I found I had a container of maple sugar in the cupboard as well, and used that instead of maple syrup; swapping that out for a portion of the table sugar I needed. You can't really taste that much of the maple flavor, and there's just a hint of bourbon flavor. But it's cold and tasty, so it will get eaten, and it used three things that would have otherwise been taking up space in the pantry as well. I'm also leaving the ice cream maker set up so I can use it for future things (I have all the ingredients for chocolate sorbet and that will likely be next). It is the season for Cold And Creamy Things, and I'm hoping to have the fridge a bit more cleared out soon to make some puddings and fools as well so it's not all ice cream. (Although there will be plenty of ice cream, mind you.)
I'm giving myself the day off the job hunt today - a lot of things are closed today for Juneteenth anyway - and may delve into reading. I dropped by the local library branch yesterday and noticed that Brooklyn's system had this twee little Summer Reading Tracker pitched for kids - a mini poster with a street scene, with a sheet of stickers of pigeons. The idea is that you add a pigeon sticker to the poster each day you read for at least 20 minutes. It was endearingly silly enough that I took one of each and will be doing that myself.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:41 AM on June 19 [6 favorites]
The heat and humidity are starting to crank up here in Brooklyn, and for whatever reason it is setting my allergies off something fierce. I've been dealing with a sinus headache for about twelve of the past 36 hours. However I've just heard that all the state parks and beaches have been declared free today and tomorrow so I may try to sneak out.
...Maple bourbon butter pecan froyo now exists in our fridge, though. I found I had a container of maple sugar in the cupboard as well, and used that instead of maple syrup; swapping that out for a portion of the table sugar I needed. You can't really taste that much of the maple flavor, and there's just a hint of bourbon flavor. But it's cold and tasty, so it will get eaten, and it used three things that would have otherwise been taking up space in the pantry as well. I'm also leaving the ice cream maker set up so I can use it for future things (I have all the ingredients for chocolate sorbet and that will likely be next). It is the season for Cold And Creamy Things, and I'm hoping to have the fridge a bit more cleared out soon to make some puddings and fools as well so it's not all ice cream. (Although there will be plenty of ice cream, mind you.)
I'm giving myself the day off the job hunt today - a lot of things are closed today for Juneteenth anyway - and may delve into reading. I dropped by the local library branch yesterday and noticed that Brooklyn's system had this twee little Summer Reading Tracker pitched for kids - a mini poster with a street scene, with a sheet of stickers of pigeons. The idea is that you add a pigeon sticker to the poster each day you read for at least 20 minutes. It was endearingly silly enough that I took one of each and will be doing that myself.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:41 AM on June 19 [6 favorites]
Ooh, I think the universe heard me say that I was considering taking the day off the job hunt - I just got an automated email from one of the companies I sent my application into a couple weeks back, saying that "we're still going through the candidates, but you're still in the running". That particular application was one of five I sent to the same big corporation, and I've gotten other automated "thanks, but no thanks" emails from them - so this was different, and that sounds a bit promising.
I'm taking that as the gods giving me permission to slack off today - "yeah, we've got your back on this, go have fun".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:47 AM on June 19 [9 favorites]
I'm taking that as the gods giving me permission to slack off today - "yeah, we've got your back on this, go have fun".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:47 AM on June 19 [9 favorites]
Contract at X, full-time at 8% reduction. Weirdness right from the beginning.
Oh no, that's not serious weirdness. Being on contract always has added costs and risks: you (and/or the employer) are taxed differently, you have fewer rights, and your position is more precarious, since contractors can usually be released instantly, at little cost to the employer. My contracts often paid an hourly that was 25% more than the same job if onstaff. Though they weren't contract-to-hire relationships.
But yeah the fiddling with the job titles is some bullshit, and it's good that your spouse has fought and won that one. Accepting less would lock in the lesser title and salary... a demotion, basically.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:50 AM on June 19 [2 favorites]
Oh no, that's not serious weirdness. Being on contract always has added costs and risks: you (and/or the employer) are taxed differently, you have fewer rights, and your position is more precarious, since contractors can usually be released instantly, at little cost to the employer. My contracts often paid an hourly that was 25% more than the same job if onstaff. Though they weren't contract-to-hire relationships.
But yeah the fiddling with the job titles is some bullshit, and it's good that your spouse has fought and won that one. Accepting less would lock in the lesser title and salary... a demotion, basically.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:50 AM on June 19 [2 favorites]
DOT, you are actually the 4th person I've encountered on a job search at the moment.
Make that 5. Since April 10. Three months is my longest stretch of unemployment so I'm getting a little itchy. Really thought I'd have something by now.
posted by cooker girl at 8:52 AM on June 19 [5 favorites]
Make that 5. Since April 10. Three months is my longest stretch of unemployment so I'm getting a little itchy. Really thought I'd have something by now.
posted by cooker girl at 8:52 AM on June 19 [5 favorites]
I apologize for being unclear, I did not mean that the 8% reduction from contract to full-time hire was weird. We knew that was normal. I meant elements of the job were very much “this is not normal” in a manner that ended with his hiring manager being fired.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 10:46 AM on June 19 [3 favorites]
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 10:46 AM on June 19 [3 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos, your ice cream maker comments in the free threads have goaded me into buying one myself! Like I need another kitchen gadget, but I'm really looking forward to home-made gelato and sorbet. Do you have any especially good individual recipes or recipe sources?
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:18 PM on June 19 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:18 PM on June 19 [2 favorites]
Do you have any especially good individual recipes or recipe sources?
OOH.
Okay, two books that I turn to a lot are the Ample Hills recipe book and David Liebowitz's The Perfect Scoop. Ample Hills is/was/is a Brooklyn based ice cream shop that's had an....eventful past few years (VERY long story; the original owners tried growing too fast, ran into money issues and sold it to start over with a new standalone shop, but then the new owners also ran into trouble and the original owners were able to buy it back), but they make KILLER ice cream. I once told a tourist who was debating whether to join me in the line to get into one of their shops that "it's like if Willy Wonka did ice cream" - some really free-wheeling whimsy in the flavors, with many of the flavors drawing inspiration from the local neighborhoods where each of the shops were based. The flavor that put Ample Hills on the map (salted crack caramel) is in there, as well as a flavor inspired by The Big Lebowski, one inspired by Hudson Valley farmers' markets, and a flavor that was a tribute to Barack Obama.
The Perfect Scoop is less whimsical, but still damn good - I've made several of the fruit sorbets and a chocolate sorbet, as well as a chocolate and raspberry ice cream, and can recommend all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:35 PM on June 19 [4 favorites]
OOH.
Okay, two books that I turn to a lot are the Ample Hills recipe book and David Liebowitz's The Perfect Scoop. Ample Hills is/was/is a Brooklyn based ice cream shop that's had an....eventful past few years (VERY long story; the original owners tried growing too fast, ran into money issues and sold it to start over with a new standalone shop, but then the new owners also ran into trouble and the original owners were able to buy it back), but they make KILLER ice cream. I once told a tourist who was debating whether to join me in the line to get into one of their shops that "it's like if Willy Wonka did ice cream" - some really free-wheeling whimsy in the flavors, with many of the flavors drawing inspiration from the local neighborhoods where each of the shops were based. The flavor that put Ample Hills on the map (salted crack caramel) is in there, as well as a flavor inspired by The Big Lebowski, one inspired by Hudson Valley farmers' markets, and a flavor that was a tribute to Barack Obama.
The Perfect Scoop is less whimsical, but still damn good - I've made several of the fruit sorbets and a chocolate sorbet, as well as a chocolate and raspberry ice cream, and can recommend all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:35 PM on June 19 [4 favorites]
The mind reels....
a flavor that was a tribute to Barack Obama
"Baracky Road"? "Audacity of Cantaloupe"? "Renegade Lemonade"?
a flavor inspired by The Big Lebowski
I assume a "Caucasian" (White Russian) cocktail-based flavor. But that's so obvious; what about, say, "That's Just, Like, Uh, Your Persimmon, Man"? Or an "Oat Soda" flavor?
Surely there's more possibilities, in both of the above cases although Far Be It From Me to inadvertently kick off a massive pun thread - heaven forfend!
Anyway, thanks for the recommendations!
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:44 PM on June 19 [1 favorite]
a flavor that was a tribute to Barack Obama
"Baracky Road"? "Audacity of Cantaloupe"? "Renegade Lemonade"?
a flavor inspired by The Big Lebowski
I assume a "Caucasian" (White Russian) cocktail-based flavor. But that's so obvious; what about, say, "That's Just, Like, Uh, Your Persimmon, Man"? Or an "Oat Soda" flavor?
Surely there's more possibilities, in both of the above cases although Far Be It From Me to inadvertently kick off a massive pun thread - heaven forfend!
Anyway, thanks for the recommendations!
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:44 PM on June 19 [1 favorite]
Does anyone want a NY Times Games access code?
I cancelled my $1 a month subscription to The Athletic, cancelled when the renewal was $4.99 (a month) and got a popup saying that I could renew for an annual plan of $9.99 offer. So I did.
It came with a code for the NY Times thing. If anyone wants it, memail me.
posted by porpoise at 12:13 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
I cancelled my $1 a month subscription to The Athletic, cancelled when the renewal was $4.99 (a month) and got a popup saying that I could renew for an annual plan of $9.99 offer. So I did.
It came with a code for the NY Times thing. If anyone wants it, memail me.
posted by porpoise at 12:13 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
1. David Leibowitz has good recipes. Strong recommend.
2. Beware the NYTimes games app. Beware.
3. A football (‘soccer’) player from France had a kind of remarkable, thoughtful, intelligent, wise comment at the beginning of the EM (EuroCup football thing going on now) . It’s easiest to google “Mbappé before Austria match” - the pull quote is “the extremes are at the gates of power” which isn’t quite what he says but catches the tone 100% - most striking was his exhortations to young people to go vote.
4. Weather forecasts don’t seem to… work anymore? Like, they’re wrong more and more often? Even a day in advance? Anyone else have this?
posted by From Bklyn at 2:33 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
2. Beware the NYTimes games app. Beware.
3. A football (‘soccer’) player from France had a kind of remarkable, thoughtful, intelligent, wise comment at the beginning of the EM (EuroCup football thing going on now) . It’s easiest to google “Mbappé before Austria match” - the pull quote is “the extremes are at the gates of power” which isn’t quite what he says but catches the tone 100% - most striking was his exhortations to young people to go vote.
4. Weather forecasts don’t seem to… work anymore? Like, they’re wrong more and more often? Even a day in advance? Anyone else have this?
posted by From Bklyn at 2:33 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
> a flavor that was a tribute to Barack Obama
"Baracky Road"? "Audacity of Cantaloupe"? "Renegade Lemonade"?
It was called "Four More Years" (it was released in 2012) and was a Ommegang beer ice cream with bits of honeycomb candy, in honor of the fact that there were beehives and a microbrewery at the White House at that time. This flavor was a limited-edition thing, developed along with a Mitt Romney flavor ("Rom Raisin") as a sort of straw poll for that year's election season. "Four More Years" was way more popular. And yes, they also came up with a pair of flavors in 2016: "Madam President" was a chili-chocolate flavor with bits of chocolate chip cookies (using Hilary's recipe), and "Make America Orange Again" was an orange marshmallow ice cream with brownie "bricks" (and they expressly used an artificial orange coloring, something they usually do NOT do).
> a flavor inspired by The Big Lebowski
I assume a "Caucasian" (White Russian) cocktail-based flavor.
Yep.
Although, if you're looking for flavors with punny names - the current shop flavors include "Hopelessly Devoted to Brew" (a chocolate and coffee vibe), "Corn to Run" (a corn ice cream with corn muffin bits and blueberry swirl) and "Night at the Mooseum" (Dark chocolate ice cream with Raaka Chooclate Pieces , chocolate sandwich cookie dust, salty pretzel swirls and multi -colored chocolate geodes). The Corn to Run and Night at the Mooseum are some formerly only-available-in-this-location flavors from older shops.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:56 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
"Baracky Road"? "Audacity of Cantaloupe"? "Renegade Lemonade"?
It was called "Four More Years" (it was released in 2012) and was a Ommegang beer ice cream with bits of honeycomb candy, in honor of the fact that there were beehives and a microbrewery at the White House at that time. This flavor was a limited-edition thing, developed along with a Mitt Romney flavor ("Rom Raisin") as a sort of straw poll for that year's election season. "Four More Years" was way more popular. And yes, they also came up with a pair of flavors in 2016: "Madam President" was a chili-chocolate flavor with bits of chocolate chip cookies (using Hilary's recipe), and "Make America Orange Again" was an orange marshmallow ice cream with brownie "bricks" (and they expressly used an artificial orange coloring, something they usually do NOT do).
> a flavor inspired by The Big Lebowski
I assume a "Caucasian" (White Russian) cocktail-based flavor.
Yep.
Although, if you're looking for flavors with punny names - the current shop flavors include "Hopelessly Devoted to Brew" (a chocolate and coffee vibe), "Corn to Run" (a corn ice cream with corn muffin bits and blueberry swirl) and "Night at the Mooseum" (Dark chocolate ice cream with Raaka Chooclate Pieces , chocolate sandwich cookie dust, salty pretzel swirls and multi -colored chocolate geodes). The Corn to Run and Night at the Mooseum are some formerly only-available-in-this-location flavors from older shops.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:56 AM on June 20 [1 favorite]
As posted on Bluesky earlier today:
US colleague: Where are you?
Me: Currently in Martin Hussingtree.
US: ??
Me: It's between Salwarpe and Oddingley.
US: You're just making up names.
Me: Nope. Look it up; I'm in Worcestershire.
US: Hah! Worcestershire is a sauce brand, not a place.
Me: ...
To which Dr Joanne Williams accurately responded:
Heading over to North Piddle later? It's just off the Inkberrow road. Go through Broughton Hackett and turn off after Upton Snodsbury.
Worcestershire is great for this.
posted by Wordshore at 2:28 PM on June 20 [7 favorites]
US colleague: Where are you?
Me: Currently in Martin Hussingtree.
US: ??
Me: It's between Salwarpe and Oddingley.
US: You're just making up names.
Me: Nope. Look it up; I'm in Worcestershire.
US: Hah! Worcestershire is a sauce brand, not a place.
Me: ...
To which Dr Joanne Williams accurately responded:
Heading over to North Piddle later? It's just off the Inkberrow road. Go through Broughton Hackett and turn off after Upton Snodsbury.
Worcestershire is great for this.
posted by Wordshore at 2:28 PM on June 20 [7 favorites]
It’s my birthday today. Spouse has been spoiling me all week with the presentation of a high-end tequila or mezcal for sipping and a couple of bright shirts from a website that most definitely caters to women of a certain age. The shirts are perfect for the office, as the new space is still on the cold side.
The cat separation is going well. Menace is less stressed and using the box regularly now, to the point that she is allowed to roam when people are home. Mayhem is still acting up, but I’m very confident of the cause and will be setting mitigation efforts up shortly, once my current upper respiratory madness passes completely.
I’ve been thinking a lot about a friendship breakup I experienced almost two decades ago. Know that former friend has experienced some life troubles as of late (we have people in common). Have been tempted to reach out, but past me was smart and deleted all their contact information from everywhere, so that is not happening. But I want them to have peace above all. So that is my wish this year, for my former friend and for all of all. Peace in whatever form is most meaningful for you.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:15 AM on June 21 [5 favorites]
The cat separation is going well. Menace is less stressed and using the box regularly now, to the point that she is allowed to roam when people are home. Mayhem is still acting up, but I’m very confident of the cause and will be setting mitigation efforts up shortly, once my current upper respiratory madness passes completely.
I’ve been thinking a lot about a friendship breakup I experienced almost two decades ago. Know that former friend has experienced some life troubles as of late (we have people in common). Have been tempted to reach out, but past me was smart and deleted all their contact information from everywhere, so that is not happening. But I want them to have peace above all. So that is my wish this year, for my former friend and for all of all. Peace in whatever form is most meaningful for you.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 4:15 AM on June 21 [5 favorites]
Oh man, yesterday was a wonderful full rich day.
I woke up at about 3:30 to get myself dressed and over to the Botanic Garden - they were having a pair of performances that day of Canto Ostinato, this contemporary classical piece. The dawn performance was scored for one synth and four marimba players, and about 40 of us turned up at dawn for the show. Most of us sat and watched but I saw two women doing this sort of ecstatic interpretive dance towards the back of where we were all sitting.
The show was done by about 6:30, and they let people wander around inside the garden for another three hours; usually the garden doesn't open until 10. It was GORGEOUS walking around that early, with so few people; I went to a number of my usual hide out and chill spots and REALLY had them all to myself this time. The heat hadn't really kicked in yet, to boot.
I still was kinda done by about 8, so head home (a ten-minute bus ride) and did some bare-bones job searching and made a second cup of coffee. I had an appointment to meet someone at the garden at 9 am - a neighboring building needed some repair work and they needed access, so I was going to let them in; I had a couple of things I could do in my plot so I was going to just stick around for the hour. But another member also said he was planning to stick around the garden for the WHOLE morning, so I planted my cucumbers and watered everything and then took off.
There's a small museum a short distance from the garden, and they were having a chill, artsy-craftsy and new agey event that same day. And, Brooklyn library system is having this thing where you try to visit all the different branches in the system, and I've been doing that; I head back to that corner of Brooklyn to hit up three branches and the solstice event before returning to the garden. I try to read something at each branch when I visit (so it's not like "hi, gimme the sticker that proves I was here, bye"), and at one spot I even checked something out. So yesterday was a full day of reading Greek mythology, walking in the sunshine, making dream pillows and a wind chime, and then sitting in another corner of the garden and reading again at dusk before the music kicked back up at sunset. I came home, ate ice cream for dinner and went right to sleep.
It's very likely that I will have a job next year on the summer solstice and won't be able to do something like this again, but damn this was a great day.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:34 AM on June 21 [4 favorites]
I woke up at about 3:30 to get myself dressed and over to the Botanic Garden - they were having a pair of performances that day of Canto Ostinato, this contemporary classical piece. The dawn performance was scored for one synth and four marimba players, and about 40 of us turned up at dawn for the show. Most of us sat and watched but I saw two women doing this sort of ecstatic interpretive dance towards the back of where we were all sitting.
The show was done by about 6:30, and they let people wander around inside the garden for another three hours; usually the garden doesn't open until 10. It was GORGEOUS walking around that early, with so few people; I went to a number of my usual hide out and chill spots and REALLY had them all to myself this time. The heat hadn't really kicked in yet, to boot.
I still was kinda done by about 8, so head home (a ten-minute bus ride) and did some bare-bones job searching and made a second cup of coffee. I had an appointment to meet someone at the garden at 9 am - a neighboring building needed some repair work and they needed access, so I was going to let them in; I had a couple of things I could do in my plot so I was going to just stick around for the hour. But another member also said he was planning to stick around the garden for the WHOLE morning, so I planted my cucumbers and watered everything and then took off.
There's a small museum a short distance from the garden, and they were having a chill, artsy-craftsy and new agey event that same day. And, Brooklyn library system is having this thing where you try to visit all the different branches in the system, and I've been doing that; I head back to that corner of Brooklyn to hit up three branches and the solstice event before returning to the garden. I try to read something at each branch when I visit (so it's not like "hi, gimme the sticker that proves I was here, bye"), and at one spot I even checked something out. So yesterday was a full day of reading Greek mythology, walking in the sunshine, making dream pillows and a wind chime, and then sitting in another corner of the garden and reading again at dusk before the music kicked back up at sunset. I came home, ate ice cream for dinner and went right to sleep.
It's very likely that I will have a job next year on the summer solstice and won't be able to do something like this again, but damn this was a great day.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:34 AM on June 21 [4 favorites]
...and turn off after Upton Snodsbury.
I assume that's somewhere near Market Snodsbury??
Went to endodontist.
Good news- I don't need a root canal.
Bad news- that tooth has to go.
posted by MtDewd at 7:14 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
I assume that's somewhere near Market Snodsbury??
Went to endodontist.
Good news- I don't need a root canal.
Bad news- that tooth has to go.
posted by MtDewd at 7:14 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
Wordshore, that reminds me of the story of a (possibly apocryphal) newspaper headline:
"Seething Woman Marries Little Snoring Man"
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:18 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
"Seething Woman Marries Little Snoring Man"
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:18 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]
Welp, people are getting covid again. So far two in the show have it--one ensemble member I hang out with, and the musical director. I gather the first one has a worse case of it than the musical director, as the plan last night was to have the orchestra stay home and the musical director play in the pit alone/masked until he tests clean. Everyone else so far has tested negative, including the orchestra. I've tested negative last night and this morning. However, I seem to have a slight cold the last few days, so that um, concerns me. Now, it's the same petty-ass tiny cold I get every once in a while that doesn't seem to be caught from anyone, that starts out with dried-out throat, then the throat improves and now I have slightly clogged one nostril, and it's probably having a slightly cloggy nose that brought on the throat. And the theater is SO dry right now that my throat dried out again after "Under the Sea." Nothing major, but me actually having any kind of cold symptoms and covid going around makes me nervous.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:59 AM on June 21
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:59 AM on June 21
Get your shots.
Keep wearing a mask in public places...
We are super careful, but not all of our contacts are. So, everyone in my family has gotten it, except me. And I am like a year behind on my boosters. Be smart people...
posted by Windopaene at 7:20 PM on June 21 [2 favorites]
Keep wearing a mask in public places...
We are super careful, but not all of our contacts are. So, everyone in my family has gotten it, except me. And I am like a year behind on my boosters. Be smart people...
posted by Windopaene at 7:20 PM on June 21 [2 favorites]
Well, the nice thing these days is my castmate has now tested negative/no symptoms two days after coming down with it. (No word on the musical director so far.) It's amazing when someone manages to clear the damn thing in a day or two these days.
Still testing negative here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:19 PM on June 22
Still testing negative here.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:19 PM on June 22
A previous owner of my car had gotten its entire front and the front part of the hood covered in a clear vinyl "bra". I bought the car in 2012. so that vinyl is at least 12 years old and it's very much looking its age: fraying at some edges, and looking rather diseased over most of it. According to the internet the solution for removing it is to gently warm it with a heat gun and pull it off bit by bit. Okay, I can give that a try...
I live in an apartment, with no way to run an extension cord over to the parking lot, so I bought an inexpensive cordless heat gun along with a couple of batteries and a charger. Today I went out there with the heat gun, a little plastic "razor blade" (don't want to mar the paint!), a bottle of Goo Gone, and a roll of paper towels. It took me about 45 minutes just to remove a ~6"x10" corner of it! It tore when I tried to pull it off as a sheet because it's so thin and brittle; all I could do is scrape off little bits at a time. I don't know if it's due to age, or if there's a better way, but as it is it would take hours and hours of work (and lots of recharging cycles) to do the entire front...I don't have the patience (or the back) for that. I was hoping to do it myself cheaply, but I'll have to see what it would cost to have a professional remove it, and cross my fingers it won't cost too much. Feh.
But I was able to verify that the "disease" is just in the vinyl, the paint underneath is good as new. And I also managed to glue the headliner back up where it was sagging in one area. So the afternoon hasn't been a total loss. And now it's time for a beer!
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:16 PM on June 23
I live in an apartment, with no way to run an extension cord over to the parking lot, so I bought an inexpensive cordless heat gun along with a couple of batteries and a charger. Today I went out there with the heat gun, a little plastic "razor blade" (don't want to mar the paint!), a bottle of Goo Gone, and a roll of paper towels. It took me about 45 minutes just to remove a ~6"x10" corner of it! It tore when I tried to pull it off as a sheet because it's so thin and brittle; all I could do is scrape off little bits at a time. I don't know if it's due to age, or if there's a better way, but as it is it would take hours and hours of work (and lots of recharging cycles) to do the entire front...I don't have the patience (or the back) for that. I was hoping to do it myself cheaply, but I'll have to see what it would cost to have a professional remove it, and cross my fingers it won't cost too much. Feh.
But I was able to verify that the "disease" is just in the vinyl, the paint underneath is good as new. And I also managed to glue the headliner back up where it was sagging in one area. So the afternoon hasn't been a total loss. And now it's time for a beer!
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:16 PM on June 23
There's a new free thread for a new week, up on the front page. Optional theme for your comments: coping with heatwaves.
posted by Wordshore at 12:05 AM on June 24
posted by Wordshore at 12:05 AM on June 24
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posted by mbo at 12:53 AM on June 17 [10 favorites]